
THE SILENT HOUR. 



Jfctcn lit (Sitter, Scfytoetgeti ift ©c(b. 

German Proverb, 




ORIGINAL, AND SELECTED BY THE AUTHOR OF 




©econb (£bttum. 



SAMPSON LOW, SON, & MARSTON, 
CROWN BUILDINGS, 188, FLEET STREET. 
1868. 



If Tnoifnr 

t. c 

c c c 

( < 

c c c 

c c 



PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 



In the first Edition of this work the Editor gave some 
reason for its existence in the fact that many had urged 
him to issue a volume of Essays * addressed immediately 
to the purpose of furnishing a book for Sunday reading, 
but that, not feeling himself competent, he had called out 
certain high commanders in the army of letters which he 
follows, and had shown how they could treat of those 
weighty concerns which come home to the business and 
bosoms of all men. To introduce these Essays fitly, he 
urged that it would be impossible to offer finer, more in- 
teresting, or more convincing compositions in any language 
than those which make up the staple of this book. He 
added also that, to fit the work more immediately to the 



iv PREFACE. 

service he intended it for, he " had placed side by side of 
these, to be seen to much disadvantage, certain Essays 
of his own." 

The first Edition was so soon exhausted, that the ap- 
probation of the Public may be pleaded as the best endorse- 
ment of the intention and its performance. But having 
given a list of the authors from whose works he had ex- 
tracted Essays and adapted them to his purpose, certain 
newspaper critics, then, perhaps, first aware of the existence 
of such writers, treated with a lofty scorn the idea of making 
extracts from authors so familiar and so famous. But, 
with due deference to these learned authorities, the works 
of Baxter, Latimer, Sherlock, Barrow, and Jeremy Taylor, 
are not found in every home, nor are their ponderous 
volumes easily accessible. But even were they so found, 
that would be no reason why portions of their works should 
not be detailed for special and more modern reading. Some 
years ago, the writer projected for his own use a work pro-, 
posed to be called " Christology," or the words, without 
comment or note, spoken by the Saviour when on earth. 



PREFACE. v 

It is true that all these are to be found in the " New 
Testament/ 5 but the circulation of those books in every 
part of the kingdom was no hindrance to a recent author 
to issue a similar work, nor to hundreds of persons, who 
felt that the work was to them a necessity, to purchase it. 

With this explanation, the Editor leaves the Second 
Edition in the hands of the Public. His intention is very 
simple and straightforward ; whether it has been well- 
executed he must leave the Public to decide. 



CONTENTS. 



Silence, Meditation, and Rest - 


The Editor 


PAGE 

1 


Worship 


- Ibid. 


9 


How to Read the Scriptures 


- Homilies 


19 


Unreasonable Infidelity - 


Isaac Barrow 


29 


The Great Loss of the Worldlings 


- Rich. Baxter 


56 


The Prayers of Mankind 


The Editor 


63 


Certainty of Death 


- Dean Sherlock 


73 


On the Greatness of God 


Massillon 


83 


Our Daily Bread - 


- Bp. Latimer 


92 


The Art of Contentment 


- Abp. Sanderson\2^ 


The Foolish Exchange 


- Jeremy Taylor 


146 


Humility .... 


The Editor 


188 


Of a Peaceable Temper - 


Isaac Barrow 


197 


On the Marriage Ring— Part I. 


Jeremy Taylor 


228 


On the Marriage Ring— Part II. 


- Ibid. 


246 


The Sweetness of Life - 


The Editor 


264 



VI 11 



Nearer to God 
The Sanctity of Home 
The True Gentleman 
The Thankful Heart 



- A bp. Sandys 273 
John Ruskin 286 

- Ibid. 291 

- Izaak Walton 294 




SILENCE, MEDITATION, AND REST* 

N the ceaseless work of the world, the discord 
of opinion, the clatter of preparation, the con- 
fusion of much talking, and the babel of various 
assertion, there is too little space left for silence ; 
or rather, none at all. How tired one's ears become, how 
the brain itself sometimes reels and whirls, perturbed by the 
incessant beating of the waves of sound, and how delightedly 
we go away from the rattle of town to a country solitude 
where, indeed, silence seems to dwell — but is not. For in 
this material world the Spirit of Life is vocal, and the very 
beating of our hearts and the pulsations of our veins keep us 
from complete silence. The rustle of the leaves and the 
motions of insect life about us, — the whirl and gurgle of the 
river as it glides on to join the sea, — the distant lowing of 
cattle, or the baying of hounds, are contrasts not inharmo- 
nious with the prevailing quiet, and at such a time one can 
think down hours to moments, and anticipate, so far as life 
can image death, — in the stillness of our thoughtful moments, 
— the quiet of the grave. 

* "E7fVeTo cry?? evTcp obpavy ods yfxidopiov " There was silence in the 
heaven for about half an hour. — Apocalypse, cap. viii, I. 

B 




2 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



Such silence is good for the body and good for the soul 
It is the real rest that we get that does us so great a benefit ; 
and if a grave statesman — one who loves his country, and 
has brain and heart disturbed by the many difficult questions 
around us — could only, for two or three days during the re- 
cess, or, let us say, now and then on Sundays — exchange his 
brains with those of a country clown, who merely dreams 
rather than thinks of his prayers, it may be, or of the work- 
ings of his farm, well would it be for him. What a complete 
silence of thought for the Prime Minister, and what a racket 
for Giles ! Shakspere makes a poor troubled king thus look 
on a shepherd swain and envy him. " It would be a happy 
life to be no better", he says. To carve out dials quaintly by 
the hour ; and then the wearied brain of the king pictures 
the quiet hours as they flit by, all of which he has missed, 
with sad and touching iteration, — so many hours for this, for 
that, until Time ceased : — 

"So minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years 
Passed over to the end they were created, 
Would bring white hairs into a quiet grave. 
Ah, what a life were this !" 

Who does not sympathise with the poor king, couched on a 
bed, around which fear, mistrust, and treason wait, and with 
no hope of quiet save in the grave itself. And this thought 
often recurs in our deepest thinker and sweetest writer. 
Sleep, gentle sleep ! cries one tired chief of men, Nature's 
soft nurse, balm of hurt minds, how have I frighted thee ! 
and with persuasive syllables he tells how the tired ship-boy 
upon the high and giddy mast enjoys sleep better than a 
king. Silence and sleep, — these are indeed the balm of hurt 



SILENCE, MEDITATION, AND REST. 3 

minds, the cure of wounded hearts, and that sweet anodyne 
which all who have fought and struggled with the world, who 
have been hurt in the battle, or are only weighed down and 
worn out by their heavy armour, or perhaps even hurt by 
their own swords, — require. 

" Let us be silent?, says a writer, " that we may hear the 
whispers of the gods." Yes, there is that strange power in 
silent reflection that it strengthens a man a hundred times 
as much as any noisy declamation, or any windy oath. 
You find that the men who do — not the men who only say — 
do not swear, nor protest, nor make much of a noise. Re- 
solutions are formed, and conquests over self— just the great- 
est conquests in the world — are effected silently in the quiet 
hour, nay, for that matter, the quiet moment of life. 

Blessed, powerful, nay, awful is silence. Too much of it 
will drive men mad, but without it we are but madmen, de- 
lirious, driving from business to pleasure, and again from 
pleasure to business, in search of— what? Do we ever hear 
the whispers of the gods ? Do we ever listen to the cry of 
Wisdom, heard by some in the street, but regarded by no 
man. 

Time and Silence, Patience and Faith, — great words, not 
enough loved nor understood in these noisy times. It must 
have been in the silent hours that hung so often about that 
country town of Stratford, where, in the evening, the night- 
ingale gave her heart to music, and the cooing of the dove 
soothed into rest the listening woods, as the sun went down 
in unspeakable glory, that the heart of the sweetest and wisest 
singer England has ever had was open to the whispers of 
that great God whose love he so often breathes. And it was 



4 



THE SILENT HOUR, 



in silence and sadness, too, that the family of William Burns 
wept whilst there stood amongst it " a boy named Robert, 
with a heart of melting pity, of greatness and fiery wrath ; 
and his voice, fashioned here by this poor father, and in 
silence too, does it not already reach, like a great elegy, like 
a stern prophecy, to the ends of the world ?" Silence, self- 
examination, these grow into determination, for thereby a 
man measures and knows himself. 

There are in eastern lands certain servants, the best watchers 
in the world, men who have no tongues, but who are all 
eyes and ears, — mutes, who in their way might give us some 
kind of lesson. Not that to say nothing and to be in- 
capable of speech is not base in one who has a tongue, and 
to be deplored in one who has not. Speech is, after all, 
not the silvern but the golden thing, when rightly used, for 
upon the golden words of God's inspired preachers how 
much has hung ; what revolutions in heart and mind, in 
kingdom and empire, in very race, have not those golden un- 
lockings of the mind, those wise breakings of silence, led to. 
But they who spoke were bidden to meditate, to endure 
and to be quiet till the time came, not even to think what 
they would say, for the inspiration came, and God gave them 
words. But the quietude gave them strength. How often 
have men been taken forcibly by God's angels, — who in this 
instance were his rough messengers clothed in flesh, — beadles, 
soldiers and others, and have been plunged into quietude 
and solitary life to do a great work ? That is a strange but 
true tale told by a stout Protestant Captain, — in days when 
people trembled a little before the Star Chamber and Arch- 
bishop Laud at the word Protestant, — who translated Luther's 



SILENCE, MEDITATION, AND REST. 5 

capital Colloquia Mensalia, wherein are to be found more 
heart breathings and spiritual teachings than in any other 
book, at any rate of a like sort. A very strange tale to some, 
but to us real, and full of fine teachings. The Captain had 
dreamed a dream, in which he was bidden to translate out 
of the German this book, but, like most of us, had thought 
it no sin to put the thing off and off, until the work stood a 
fair chance of not being done. Then the Captain again 
dreamed perhaps of his friend Catharus Van Spar, in whose 
house the book was dug up wrapped in wax, — the solitary 
copy, the rest being Pope-burned and otherwise mangled, — 
and in this dream " an ancient man, arrayed all in white, 
having a long, broad, white beard hanging down to his girdle, 
who, taking me by the ear, spake these words unto me : 
6 Sirrah ! will you not take time to translate that book which 
is sent to you out of Germany ? I will shortly provide for 
you both place and time to do it 7 ; and then he vanished. " 
And truly, shortly the Captain pressing the Lord-Treasurer 
for arrears of pay, was clapped up in prison in the Gate- 
House at Westminster, without showing any cause, and there 
he was kept for ten years, having indeed time enough to 
translate his book there, — time to think and meditate in sor- 
row and in silence. 

Quietude and an enforced retreat were found also for the 
production of a greater book, and one of a far wider circula- 
tion than Luther's Table Talk, with its jests mingled so 
strangely with the most subtle disquisition and rapt devo- 
tion. This was that of the poor tinker, John Bunyan, — a 
tinker of a rare sort, to whom only the very finest gentlemen 
in the world are equal, finest being in the sense of best. For 



6 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



even as Bunyan, as he says, " walked through the wilderness 
of this world," he "lighted on a certain place where there 
was a den, and laid me down in that place to sleep, and as I 
slept I dreamed a dream." " Friend," said a Quaker, coming 
to this den, " the Lord sent me to seek for thee, and I have 
been through several counties in search of thee, and now I 
have found thee." " Thou dost not speak truth, friend," an- 
swered plain John ; " for the Lord well knows that I have 
been in this jail some years, and if he had sent thee, he 
would have sent thee directly." 

" The Lord well knows that I have been in this jail some 
years." In such terms, even with something, perhaps, of sad- 
ness and reproach, the great good man spake of his troubles 
and his silent sorrows ; but it was in the silence of the jail, 
in the quietude of sorrow, that the great work was born which 
makes us all long to set out on the heavenly journey, and 
traces the troubled steps of the soul on its pilgrimage to God. 
It is chiefly in the Silent Hour that we get more precious 
impulses, more warm desires and high thoughts, which even 
the lowest of us have, and by which we are united to God, 
in which the material is lost in the spiritual, and the flesh 
yields itself a prisoner to the spirit. Not amidst the shout- 
ings of the triumph, the branch-strown way, and the wild 
excitement of the crowd, do these moments come ; but in the 
garden, apart and alone, — in the chamber, — not erect and 
triumphant, but suppliant and bowed down. 

"There are three kinds of silence," said that strange but 
holy woman, Madame Guyon. " Silence from words is good, 
because inordinate speaking tends to evil. Silence or rest 
from desires and passions is still better, because it promotes 



SILENCE, M EDIT A TION y AND REST. 7 



quietness of spirit. But best of all is silence from wandering 
and unnecessary thoughts ; because that is essential to in- 
ternal recollection, and because it lays a foundation for a 
proper regulation and silence in other respects." 

And she was right. For " internal recollection' — a per- 
fectly new collocation of words to some of the busy, noisy, 
termagant, gold-gatherers of the world — is the one thing with- 
out which we are little better than madly impulsive puppets, 
jerked by the strings and wires of love, ambition, avarice, 
pride, vanity, and conceit. And for this we must have silence, 
quietude, reflection. Silence is the safest course, recom- 
mended to us by the wise and the calm, especially when we 
distrust ourselves. And this we all do. And for the sake of 
our souls' health let us not pass all the moments in the world 
in noisy trouble. With the opening of the seventh seal — and 
just before the seven angels with the seven trumpets make 
those tremendous denunciations which surpass anything ever 
written, and which, not comprehended by the human mind, 
yet shall as a midnight storm shake the branches of a tree — 
there is an awful sentence, "There was silence in heaven 
about the space of half an hour." Why was there that si- 
lence? In the deep tragedy which follows, where a third of 
the earth is blotted out, and a third of the living things die, 
a third of the sun is turned to darkness, and a third of the 
sea is turned to blood, men seek death and shall not find it, 
and shall follow it and it will flee from them, and frighted 
with the blowing of the trumpets, they shall desire the silence 
of the grave and it shall be denied them. For did not such 
men, in their vain ambition, once fill the post-horns of all 
Europe with their deeds ? Why not, then, be silent now ? 



8 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



why not in the quiet hours of the day of rest give ourselves 
to meditation, self-examination, wholesome thought, and heal- 
ing prayer ? 

To the end that we may do so this book is put forward, 
wherein are drawn together many thoughts, prayers, and per- 
suasives from noble minds and eloquent tongues, for the most 
part silent for centuries as to speaking, but yet capable of 
holding with us such conversation as no man can speak 
now, and helping us to spend all the more profitably The 
Silent Hour. 



WORSHIP. 



E are "born believing," says Emerson, in his 
Conduct of Life. "A man bears beliefs, as a tree 
bears apples." And yet a few lines afterwards 
he writes, " The stern old faiths have all pul- 
verised. J Tis a whole population of ladies and gentlemen 
out in search of religions." This may be true on the whole 
in America ; in England only partially so. We have many 
churches that still hold together ; there is the National Church, 
the Church of England ; there is the Presbyterian Church, 
there are the Methodist Church and the Independent Church 
which, in point of creed, differ little from it. There is, be- 
sides, the " stern old faith," and also the seductive and charm- 
ing faith of the Church of Rome, which may be gradually 
pulverising to very small dust in France and in Italy, where 
there are more bishops than in any kingdom in the world ; 
but it is growing, people tell us, somewhat fast in England ; 
as the tree dies down at its roots, long and vigorous suckers 
spring up. Then there are a number of churches, so many 
that from only a part of them, — for he surely cannot calculate 
them all, — Dean Ramsay tells us, we have four millions of 
sermons preached annually ; so that if ladies and gentlemen 
be really out in search of a religion, they have plenty of 




10 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



choice. True it is that man loves to worship, that he is 
born believing, that without a creed he wanders about like a 
masterless dog ; true also it is that " the Builder of Heaven 
has not so ill constructed His creatures as that the religion 
should fall out"; and again, that u God builds His temple in 
the heart on the ruins of temples and religions." 

The most marvellous event in all history, particularly if we 
are weak enough to doubt its Divine origin, is the propaga- 
tion of Christianity. Aiding the world, reforming and again 
forming the whole fabric of society, it yet was and is opposed 
to the world, and so opposed to it that the world in the be- 
ginning turned to, and not without some human pity tried to 
stamp or kill or drown or burn it out and extirpate it. For 
the Greek and Roman, the Persian and the Assyrian, had 
some tangible object of belief. To them, to people an ima- 
ginary heaven with figures that were like the bright exha- 
lations of the dawn, — to exalt courage, love, wisdom, war, 
art, the sea, nature, the flower, and the fruit, to heaven, was 
more than a mythic dream : it was to intensify the love of 
life, to render it perpetual, to afford to the philosophic as 
well as the vulgar an after-life, with some comfort for the 
soul when it parted from the body, wandering cheerless and 
dispossessed : — 

"Animula, vagula, blandula, 
Hospes comesque corporis," 

wrote the Emperor Adrian. " Friend and companion of this 
clay", what will you do? And this sweet heathenism lingered 
fondly with poets and philosophers, as well as common people. 
The Grecian worshipper did not like " to die, and go we know 



WORSHIP. 



ii 



not where" ; he felt that if this body had indeed " to lie in 
cold obstruction, and to rot' 7 , — that if " this sensible, warm 
motion did become a kneaded clod", — there was as great a 
punishment in annihilation as in the fabled torments of the 
dark kingdom of Pluto. 

Hence, in the worship which grew up in Greece, there 
seems to have been early a germ of an after-life, not taught 
only by the poets, but believed in by the devout and good. 
It was soon seen that Justice did not inhabit the earth : she 
had flown to heaven. To reward the good and to punish 
the wicked, a future world, a heaven and a hell, were ima- 
gined, and grew up in the midst of fable. Clothed as these 
myths were with mere tinsel draperies and lendings of the 
brain, the nucleus of them is very beautiful. God was never 
entirely without witnesses. The heathen worship tended 
heavenwards, like plants that, buried in underground cellars 
that never see light, yet shoot out towards that light. Some 
of the punishments of the mythic hell were ingenious, some 
cruel, — most of them with some beautiful shadow of justice : 
the Danaides, for ever filling vases of water, which for ever 
rushed away ; Sisyphus, rolling the stone up-hill, which, as 
soon as it reached the summit, again rolled down ; Tantalus, 
plunged into a stream, and surrounded with fruit and delicacies 
which for ever eluded his grasp ; tormented with thirst, and 
yet for ever to witness the stream sinking from him as he 
bent towards it. These stories, once heard or read, still linger 
in all minds. The punishments, however, seem to have been 
often dealt out with injustice, as if by haphazard ; and the 
heaven, the Elysian fields, seems to have been little else than 
a college wherein those admitted to such blest abodes dis- 



12 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



puted and talked over matters which had interested them in 
the world they had left, and still regretted. 

The system of the philosophic and poetic worship was such 
that from it Polytheism naturally sprang. Bad as the human 
heart may be, it does, in spite of sneering wits and howling 
fanatics, become grateful. Man, cut off from the knowledge 
of the true God, invented many gods, because, feeling grati- 
tude to the powers around him, he bent to and worshipped 
them. He bent his head to the sun, the great giver of light 
and heat, and to the moon and stars. He worshipped the 
rivers, the seas, the woods, and vales. The viewless air and 
the unseen space were peopled by his gods. He worshipped 
the principle of reproduction under the name of Venus. The 
mind, the health, the strength of man were also deified. "The 
innumerable deities were interwoven with every circumstance 
of business or pleasure, of public or of private life", says 
Gibbon ; so when a purer system came to antagonise this 
religion of a sensuous nature, it soon became evident to the 
observer that one or the other must die out. 

Based upon the religion of Moses, grand and pure in its 
beautiful monotheism, sternly declaratory of the oneness and 
power of a loving but a jealous God, Christianity imported 
into the Jewish faith a belief in a hereafter, which Moses 
never taught, and a contempt for the goods and possessions 
of this world, which was and is utterly at variance with the 
dogmata of the Jews. For aforetime, Man was to be content 
with the spoiling of the Egyptians, the dispossession and the 
slaughter of the heathens, with the holding of a land flowing 
with milk and honey. Temporal prosperity seemed to be the 
be-all and end-all of the Jews : " Fret not thyself because of 



WORSHIP. 



13 



evil-doers, neither be thou envious against the workers of 
iniquity ; for they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and 
wither as the green herb. Trust in the Lord, and do good ; 
so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed, 
.... Fret not thyself in anywise to do evil ; for evil doers 
shall be cut off ; but those that wait on the Lord, they shall 
inherit the earth." The good man is to flourish like the green 
bay tree ; his herds are to increase ; and his wife is to be as 
the fruitful vine ; his children like the beautiful and, in an 
Eastern land, refreshing branches of the olive ; his sons shall 
speak with his enemies in the gate. But this was to be upon 
a sole condition ; there was to be but one God ; no idols — 
not the image of anything on the earth, above the earth, or 
under it ; there was to be no bowing and kneeling and pro- 
strating before such dead things. " Eyes have they, but they 
see not ; ears have they, but they hear not." Such things 
the Jew hated well, wisely, and truly ; they were to be hewn 
in pieces, and the priests slain at their'altars ; and the Chris- 
tian inherited this feeling. In his pure and simple worship 
he looked to One still, — a closer, nearer, holy, and affectionate 
One, clothed in the mystery of Three. But all temporal 
prosperity was renounced ; riches were deceitful, worldly pos- 
sessions a mere drag on the soul ; there was a higher food 
than bread. "Verily, thou shalt be fed", sang David. Higher 
in the grand orchestral chorus of worship, Christ taught His 
disciples, " Man does not live by bread alone. 

The two worships, that of the world of Man's mind, and 
that of Revelation, met. Taught to plead with, to embrace 
his brother, to be obedient to a heathen law and a heathen 
monarch, the Christian would have been the most peaceable 



THE SILENT HOUR 



of all subjects if it had not been that the better Christian he 
was, the more he hated idolatry. He became a soldier, and 
fought for Heathendom ; a slave, a merchant, a judge even, 
but he could not become an idolater ; therefore, when the 
Pagans were the strongest, they punished him ; when he grew 
the strongest, he uprooted their whole faith. In vain the 
philosopher says, as he says of saint-worship to-day, " You 
see those images, — we don't worship them. Underlying them 
is an idea ; and thus we worship God in spirit." The Chris- 
tian saw through the subterfuge. " You bend down to idols," 
he said ; " ye are accursed". Everything was to him polluted 
by idolatry. " Besides the immediate representations of the 
gods, and the holy instruments of their worship, the elegant 
and agreeable fictions consecrated by the imaginations of the 
Greeks, were introduced as the richest ornaments of the 
houses, the dress, and the furniture of the Pagans." It was 
too true, a Christian could not touch a cup, a vase, a coin, a 
knife, a dagger, nor the shield which covered him in battle, 
nor pass the terminal wall of his neighbours land, without 
handling or seeing the ever-present, infinite, and abominable 
idolatry with which he was surrounded. Art, music, poetry, 
were the bond-slaves of this detestable devil-worship ; for, 
as the writings of the fathers testify, the Jew and the Chris- 
tian looked upon the ideal creations of the Pagan as mere 
devils. They did not, in their simplicity, wholly withhold 
credence from the miraculous stories which the heathen priests 
were ready to tell, but they construed them in a different 
way. They believed that the devil aided the votaries of 
Diana, or of Venus, or Jupiter; and what they saw around 
them might well convince them of the truth of their belief. 



WORSHIP. 15 

The creed of the senses, the worship of the beautiful, and 
the bending down to idols, had this result : society, from its 
top to its bottom, was utterly wrong and selfish, corrupt, rot- 
ten, and deplorable. If the Satires of Juvenal, and the novel 
or tale of Apuleius — for it is very much what the Spanish 
novella is — be true, then indeed the wonder is not so much 
that the Christians revolted at Paganism, but that the whole 
of society did not suddenly get disgusted with its own base- 
ness and sin. Of all immoral places on earth, excepting So- 
dom and Gomorrah, Pompeii and her sister Herculaneum 
appear to have been the worst. The idealisation of the senses 
had resulted, first, in a philosophical disbelief ; and lastly, in 
the grossest possible materialism and sensuality. 

Man, unaided by Revelation, gravitates in his worship to- 
wards idolatry ; and even with the whole light of Revelation 
upon us, with the mind aided and upborne by knowledge and 
the props of education, it would seem difficult for the mass 
to keep away from this detestable kind of worship. We could 
understand that, in the early days of Christianity, when the 
multitude who had, perhaps with unreason, perhaps with an 
unthinking matter of course, accepted the faith, it was neces- 
sary to paint and adorn the churches with events from the 
lives of the apostles, or with representations of the sacred 
persons named by the Evangelists ; but it does seem hard 
that Christianity, which, in the lives of its founders in the 
days of its persecutions and its consequent purity, had fought 
so strongly against this species of folly, should itself, in the 
two greatest branches of its sects, be tainted with it ; for with 
the mass the thing appealed to, and knelt to, will and must 
take the place of the thing addressed through and beyond it. 



16 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



If a devotee, kneeling before a painting of a Virgin, believes 
that that picture opens its eyes, or closes them, or smiles, or, 
as is said, comes down and touches the lips or forehead of 
the devotee, are we to lose our senses, and believe the narra- 
tion of Alban Butler, or to think that the image was still ad- 
dressed merely as a dead sign, or to accuse the devotee of 
blank idolatry ? What is idolatry? Does it not consist in 
the mere act of worship and bowing ? Was not he that bowed 
his head in the house of Rimmon an idolater, whether he 
believed in the godship of that carven and hideous piece of 
wood or not ? Can the ideal worship of the Great Spirit be 
for a moment served by art, whether it produces Madonnas 
as beautiful as those of Murillo or Carlo Dolci, Venuses as 
charming as those of Milo, an Apollo like that in the Bel- 
videre of the Vatican, 

' ' Beauteous as vision seen in dreamy sleep 
By holy maid on Delphi's haunted steep, 
Mid the dim twilight of the laurel grove, 
Too fair to worship, too divine to love," 

or a many-headed and grinning god, as hideous as any mis- 
shapen idol carved by the clumsy fingers of a negro ? The 
answer must be in the negative. The sign gets in some 
natural and easy way the qualities of the thing signified at- 
tached to it ; just as John Bunyan in his struggle with, though 
he knew it not, the spirit of Idolatry, was tempted to kneel 
down to the gown and vestments of the parson and pray to 
them, under the notion that these dead things had caught 
some of the spirit of the holy man who wore them. Let us, 
then, do away with signs and images, and worship the Spirit 
in spirit and truth. 



WORSHIP. 1 7 

The whole act of worship is and ever must be of an inward 
birth, of an invisible spirit producing outward reverence ; 
and this reverence is never to be too much outwardly marked. 
Like true goodness, which blushes to find that it is known, 
true worship puts forward its most precious fruit in silence 
and alone. The soul's sincere desire may be uttered or un- 
expressed, — perhaps it is most intense when unuttered. Thus, 
many good men have held that public worship is unnecessary, 
and in itself somewhat too openly demonstrative ; but the 
apostles, and the church after them, told their disciples (in 
contradistinction to Christ's words, " When ye pray, pray not 
as other men, but go ye into your chamber") " not to forsake 
the assembling of themselves together, as the manner of some 
is". Certainly, praying in the market-place, loud and osten- 
tatious responses in church, the talk and gossip at the chapel 
or meeting-house door, the nodding and hand-shaking in the 
pews, can be no part of true worship, but are utterly repug- 
nant to the spirit of prayer. 

What man seeks by his blind endeavours after true 
worship is to get nearer to God, to attain some spiritual 
lustration and purity, to be renewed in heart and soul, 
to bare his heart, sinful and weak though it be, in utter 
prostration before its Creator. He cannot do that unless 
he retire within himself. He may exalt himself, like the 
Pharisee, or beat his breast like the Publican ; he may ad- 
dress his prayers, as does the Queen of Spain, to the most 
gorgeously dressed doll out of nine simulacra of one human 
ideal ; or, like the cunning Eastern, he may turn on a pray- 
ing machine, which, with mechanical precision, will go re- 
gularlv through the prescribed form ; but unless the very 

C 



i8 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



heart and soul of him is humbled and prostrated, he will 
know no true worship. 

Finally, let true worshippers respect true earnestness in all 
others, so that they make some amends, as Sir Thomas 
Browne has it, for the errors in the prayers of some, " by 
rightly ordering their own." 



HOW TO READ THE SCRIPTURES. 




NTO a Christian man there can be nothing either 
more necessary or profitable, than the knowledge 
of Holy Scripture : forasmuch as in it is con- 
tained God's true word, setting forth His glory 



and also man's duty. And there is no truth nor doctrine 
necessary for our justification and everlasting salvation, 
but is, or may be, drawn out of that fountain and well of 
truth. Therefore as many as be desirous to enter into the 
right and perfect way unto God, must apply their minds to 
know Holy Scripture ; without the which, they can neither 
sufficiently know God and His will, nor their office and duty. 

And, as drink is pleasant to them that be dry, and meat 
to them that be hungry; so is the reading, hearing, search- 
ing, and studying of Holy Scripture, to them that be de- 
sirous to know God or themselves, and to do His will: and 
their stomachs only do loathe and abhor the heavenly know- 
ledge and food of God's word, that be so drowned in worldly 
vanities, that they neither savour God nor any godliness: 
for that is the cause why they desire such vanities, rather 
than the true knowledge of God. As they that are sick of 
an ague, whatsoever they eat and drink, though it be never 
so pleasant, yet it is as bitter to them as wormwood; not for 



20 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



the bitterness of the meat, but for the corrupt and bitter 
humour that is in their own tongue and mouth; even so is 
the sweetness of God's word bitter, not of itself, but only 
unto them that have their minds corrupted with long custom 
of sin and love of this world. 

Therefore, forsaking the corrupt judgment of fleshly men, 
which care not but for their carcase; let us reverently hear 
and read Holy Scripture, which is the food of the soul; let 
us diligently search for the well of life in the books of the 
New and Old Testament, and not run to the stinking puddles 
of men's traditions, devised by men's imagination, for our 
justification and salvation. {Matt, iv.) 

For, in Holy Scripture is fully contained what we ought 
to do, and what to eschew; what to believe; what to love; 
and what to look for at God's hands at length. In these 
books we shall find the Father from whom, the Son by 
whom, and the Holy Ghost in whom, all things have their 
being and keeping up; and these three persons to be but 
one God and one substance. In these books we may learn 
to know ourselves; how vile and miserable we be: and also 
to know God; how good He is of himself, and how He maketh 
us and all creatures partakers of His goodness. 

We may learn also in these books to know God's will and 
pleasure, as much as, for this present time, is convenient for 
us to know. And, as the great clerk and godly preacher, St. 
John Chrysostom saith, Whatsoever is required to the sal- 
vation of man is fully contained in the Scripture of God : 
he that is ignorant may there learn and have knowledge : he 
that is hard-hearted and an obstinate sinner shall there find 
everlasting torments, prepared of God's justice, to make him 



HOW TO READ THE SCRIPTURES, 21 

afraid, and to mollify or soften him : he that is oppressed 
with misery in this world shall there find relief in the pro- 
mises of everlasting life, to his great consolation and com- 
fort ; he that is wounded by the devil unto death, shall find 
there medicine whereby he may be restored again unto health. 
If it shall require to teach any truth, or reprove false doc- 
trine, to rebuke any vice, to commend any virtue, to give 
good counsel, to comfort, or to exhort, or to do any other 
thing requisite for our salvation, all those things, saith St. 
Chrysostom, we may learn plentifully of the Scripture. There 
is, saith Fulgentius, abundantly enough both for men to eat 
and children to suck. There is whatsoever is meet for all 
ages and for all degrees and sorts of men. 

These books, therefore, ought to be much in our hands, in 
our eyes, in our ears, in our mouths, but most of all in our 
hearts. For the Scripture of God is the heavenly meat of 
souls : the hearing and keeping of it maketh us blessed, 
sanctifieth us, and maketh us holy : it turneth our souls ; it 
is a light lantern* to our feet; it is a sure, steadfast, and 
everlasting instrument of salvation; it giveth wisdom to 
the humble and lowly hearts ; it comforteth, maketh glad, 
cheereth, and cherisheth our conscience; it is a more excel- 
lent jewel or treasure than any gold or precious stone ; it is 
more sweet than honey or honeycomb. It is called the 
best part, which Mary did choose, for it hath in it ever- 
lasting comfort. The words of Holy Scripture be called 
•words of everlasting life: for they be God's instrument, 
ordained for the same purpose. They have power to turn, 



* Light lantern ; t. e. lighted, not a dark lantern. 



22 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



through God's promise ; and they be effectual, through God's 
assistance ; and, being received in a faithful heart, they have 
ever an heavenly spiritual working in them. They are lively, 
quick, and mighty in operation, and, sharper than any two- 
edged sword, and enter through, even tmto the dividing 
asunder of the soul a?td the spirit, of the joints and the ?nar- 
row (Heb. iv, 12). Christ calleth him a wise builder that 
buildeth upon his word, upon his sure and substantial foun- 
dation (Matt, vii, 24). By this word of God we shall be 
judged : for the word that I speak, saith Christ, is it that 
shall judge in the last day {John xii, 48). He that keepeth 
the word of Christ is promised the love and favour of God, 
and that he shall be the dwelling-place or temple of the 
blessed Trinity (John xiv, 23-26). This word whosoever is 
diligent to read, and in his heart to print that he readeth, 
the great affection to the transitory things of this world shall 
be mirrished in him, and the great desire of heavenly things, 
that be therein promised of God, shall increase in him. And 
there is nothing that so much strengtheneth our faith and 
trust in God, that so much keepeth up innocency and pure- 
ness of the heart, and also of outward godly life and conver- 
sation, as continual reading and recording of God's word : 
for that thing which by continual use of reading of Holy 
Scripture, and diligent searching of the same, is deeply printed 
and graven in the heart, at length turneth almost into nature. 
And moreover, the effect and virtue of God's word is to illu- 
minate the ignorant ; and to give more light unto them that 
faithfully and diligently read it, to comfort their hearts, and 
to encourage them to perform that which of God is com- 
manded : it teacheth patience in all adversity ; in prosperity, 



HOW TO READ THE SCRIPTURES. 



23 



humbleness : what honour is due unto God, what mercy and 
charity to our neighbour : it giveth good counsel in all doubt- 
ful things : it showeth of whom we shall look for aid and 
help in all perils ; and that God is the only giver of victory in 
all battles and temptations of our enemies, bodily and ghostly. 

And in reading of God's word, he not always most profiteth 
that is most ready in turning of the book, or in saying of it 
without the book; but he that is most turned into it, that is 
most inspired with the Holy Ghost, most in his heart and 
life altered and changed into that thing which he readeth ; 
he that is daily less and less proud, less wrathful, less covet- 
ous, and less desirous of worldly and vain pleasures; he 
that daily, forsaking his old vicious life, increaseth in virtue 
more and more. 

And, to be short, there is nothing that more maintaineth 
godliness of the mind, and driveth away ungodliness, than 
doth the continual reading or hearing of God's word, if it be 
joined with a godly mind and good affection to know and 
follow God's will. For, without a single eye, pure intent, 
and good mind, nothing is allowed for good before God. 
And, on the other side, nothing more darkeneth Christ and 
the glory of God, nor bringeth in more blindness and all 
kinds of vices, than doth the ignorance of God's word. 

If we profess Christ, why be we not ashamed to be igno- 
rant in his doctrine, seeing that every man is ashamed to be 
ignorant . in that learning which he professeth ? That man 
is ashamed to be called a philosopher which readeth not the 
books of philosophy ; and to be called a lawyer, an astro- 
nomer, or a physician, that is ignorant in the books of law, 
astronomy, and physic. How can any man then say that he 



21 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



professeth Christ and his religion, if he will not apply him- 
self, as far forth as he can or may conveniently, to read and 
hear, and so to know, the books of Christ's gospel and doc- 
trine ? Although other sciences be good, and to be learned ; 
yet no man can deny but this is the chief, and passeth all 
other incomparably. What excuse shall we therefore make, 
at the last day, before Christ, that delight to read or hear 
men's fantasies and inventions more than his most holy 
gospel ? and will find no time to do that which chiefly, above 
all things, we should do ; and will rather read other things 
than that for the which we ought rather to leave reading 
of all other things ! Let us, therefore, apply ourselves, as 
far forth as we can have time and leisure, to know God's 
word, by diligent hearing and reading thereof, as many as 
profess God, and have faith and trust in him. 

But they that have no good affection to God's word, to 
colour this their fault, allege, commonly, two vain and feigned 
excuses. 

Some go about to excuse them by their own frailness and 
fearfulness, saying, that they dare not read Holy Scripture 
lest, through their ignorance, they should fall into any error. 

Others pretend that the difficulty to understand it, and the 
hardness thereof, is so great that it is meet to be read only 
of clerks and learned men. 

As touching the first : ignorance of God's word is the 
cause of all error, as Christ himself affirmed to the Sadducees, 
saying, that they erred, because they knew not the Scripture. 
{Matt, xxii, 29.) How should they, then, eschew error that 
will be still ignorant? And how should they come out of 
ignorance, that will not read nor hear that thing which should 



HOW TO READ THE SCRIPTURES. 



give them knowledge ? He that now hath most knowledge, 
was at the first ignorant : yet he forbare not to read, for fear 
he should fall into error; but he diligently read lest he should 
remain in ignorance, and through ignorance in error. And, 
if you will not know the truth or God — a thing most neces- 
sary for you, lest you fall into error ; by the same reason you 
may then lie still and never go, lest if you go you fall into 
the mire ; nor eat any good meat lest you take a surfeit ; nor 
sow your corn, nor labour in your occupation, nor use your 
merchandise, for fear you lose your seed, your labour, your 
stock ; and so, by that reason, it should be best for you to 
live idly, and never to take in hand to do any manner of 
good thing lest, peradventure, some evil thing may chance 
thereof. And if you be afraid to fall into error by reading 
of Holy Scripture, I shall show you how you may read with- 
out danger of error : read it humbly, with a meek and lowly 
heart, to the intent you may glorify God, and not yourself, 
with the knowledge of it ; and read it not without daily pray- 
ing to God that He would direct your reading to good effect ; 
and take upon you to expound it no further than you can 
plainly understand it : for, as St. Augustin saith, the know- 
ledge of Holy Scripture is a great, large, and a high place; 
but the door is very low, so that the high and arrogant man 
cannot run in ; but he must stoop low, and humble himself, 
that shall enter into it. Presumption and arrogancy is the 
mother of all error, and humility needeth to fear no error ; 
for humility will only search to know the truth, — it will search, 
and will bring together one place with another, and where it 
cannot find out the meaning, it will pray; it will ask of others 
that know, and will not presumptuously and rashly define 



25 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



anything which it knoweth not; therefore the humble man 
may search any truth boldly in the Scripture without any 
danger of error ; and if he be ignorant, he ought the more 
to read and to search Holy Scripture to bring him out of 
ignorance. I say not nay, but a man may profit with only 
hearing; but he may much more profit with both hearing 
and reading. 

This have I said as touching the fear to read, through 
ignorance of the person. 

And concerning the hardness of Scripture, he that is so 
weak that he is not able to brook strong meat, yet he may 
suck the sweet and tender milk, and defer the rest until he 
wax stronger, and come to more knowledge, for God re- 
ceiveth the learned and unlearned, and casteth away none, 
but is indifferent unto all. And the Scripture is full as well 
of low valleys, plain ways, and easy for every man to use 
and to walk in, as also of high hills and mountains which 
few men can climb unto. And whosoever giveth his mind 
to Holy Scriptures with diligent study and burning desire, it 
cannot be, saith St. John Chrysostom, that he should be left 
without help. For either God Almighty will send him some 
godly doctor to teach him, as he did to instruct the eunuch, 
a nobleman of Ethiopia, and treasurer unto Queen Candace, 
who having a great affection to read the Scripture, although 
he understood it not, yet for the desire that he had unto 
God's word, God sent his apostle Philip to declare unto him 
the true sense of the Scripture that he read ; or else, if we - 
lack a learned man to instruct and teach us, yet God himself 
from above will give light unto our minds, and teach us those 
things which are necessary for us, and wherein we be igno- 



HOW TO READ THE SCRIPTURES. 27 



rant. And in another place Chrysostom saith, that man's 
human and worldly wisdom or science is not needful to the 
understanding of Scripture, but the revelation of the Holy 
Ghost, who inspireth the true meaning unto them that, with 
humility and diligence, do search therefore. He that asketh 
shall have j and he that seeketh shall find; and he that 
knocketh shall have the door opened {Matt, vii, 8). If we 
read once, twice, or thrice, and understand not, let us not 
cease so, but still continue reading, praying, asking of others ; 
and so by still knocking, at the last the door shall be opened, 
as St. Augustine saith. Although many things in the Scrip- 
ture be spoken in obscure mysteries ; yet there is nothing 
spoken under dark mysteries in one place, but the self-same 
thing in other places is spoken more familiarly and plainly, 
to the capacity both of learned and unlearned. And those 
things in the Scripture that be plain to understand, and ne- 
cessary for salvation, every man's duty is to learn them, to 
print them in memory, and effectually to exercise them : and 
as for the dark mysteries, to be contented to be ignorant in 
them, until such time as it shall please God to open those 
things unto him. In the mean season, if he lack either aptness 
or opportunity, God will not impute it to his folly: but yet it 
behoveth not that such as be apt should set aside reading 
because some other be unapt to read ; nevertheless, for the 
hardness of such places, the reading of the whole ought not 
to be set apart. 

And briefly to conclude, as St. Augustin saith, by the 
Scripture all men be amended, weak men be strengthened, 
and strong men be comforted. So that surely none be ene- 
mies to the reading of God's word, but such as either be so 



23 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



ignorant that they know not how wholesome a thing it is ; or 
else be so sick, that they hate the most comfortable medicine 
that should heal them ; or so ungodly, that they would wish 
the people still to continue in blindness and ignorance of God. 

Thus we have briefly touched some part of the commo- 
dities of God's holy word, which is one of God's chief and 
principal benefits, given and declared to mankind here on 
earth. Let us thank God heartily for this his great and spe- 
cial gift, beneficial favour, and fatherly providence. Let us 
be glad to receive this precious gift of our heavenly Father. 
Let us hear, read, and know these holy rules, injunctions, 
and statutes of our Christian religion, and upon that we have 
made profession to God at our baptism. Let us, with fear 
and reverence, lay up in the chest of hearts these necessary 
and fruitful lessons : let us, night and day, muse and have 
meditation and contemplation in them : let us ruminate and, 
as it were, chew the cud, that we may have the sweet juice, 
spiritual effect, marrow, honey, kernel, taste, comfort, and 
consolation of them. Let us stay, quiet, and certify our 
consciences with the most infallible certainty, truth, and 
perpetual assurance of them. Let us pray to God, the only 
Author of these heavenly studies, that we may speak, think, 
believe, live, and depart hence, according to the wholesome 
doctrine and verities of them. And by that means, in this 
world, we shall have God's defence, favour, and grace, with 
the unspeakable solace of peace, and quietness of conscience ; 
and after this miserable life, we shall enjoy the endless bliss 
and glory of heaven. 




UNREASONABLE INFIDELITY.* 



F the causes of all the sin and all the mischief in 
the world were carefully sought, we should find 
the chief of all to be infidelity, — either total or 
gradual. Wherefore to dehort and dissuade 
from it is a very profitable design ; and this, with 
God's assistance, I shall endeavour from these words ; in 
which two particulars naturally do offer themselves to our ob- 
servation : an assertion implied, that infidelity is a sinful dis- 
temper of heart ; and a duty recommended, that we be careful 
to void or correct that distemper : of these to declare the one, 
and to press the other, shall be the scope of my discourse. 

That infidelity is a sinful distemper of heart, appeareth 
by divers express testimonies of Scripture, and by many 
good reasons grounded thereon. 

It is by our Saviour in terms called sin : " when he is come, 
he will reprove the world of sin,— of sin, because they be- 
lieve not in me :" and, " If I had not come, and spoken unto 
them, they had not had sin ; but now they have no cloak for 
their sin :" and, "If ye were blind, ye should not have had 




* "Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart 
of unbelief." — Hcb. iii, 12. 



3° 



THE SILENT HOUR, 



sin ; but now ye say, We see, therefore your sin abideth." 
What sin ? that of infidelity, for which they were culpable, 
having such powerful means and arguments to believe im- 
parted to them, without due effect. 

It hath a condemnation grounded thereon : " He," saith 
our Saviour, " that believeth not is condemned already, be- 
cause he hath not believed in the name of the only-begotten 
Son of God :" but condemnation ever doth suppose faultiness. 

It hath sore punishment denounced thereto : " God," saith 
St. Paul, " shall send them strong delusion, that they should 
believe a lie, that they all might be damned who believe not 
the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness ;" and, our 
Lord, saith he, at his coming to judgment, will " take ven- 
geance on them that know not God, and that obey not the 
gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ ;" whence among those, who 
" have their part in the lake burning with fire and brimstone, 
the fearful, and unbelievers" (that is, they who fear to profess, 
or refuse to believe the Christian doctrine) are reckoned in 
the first place ; which implieth infidelity to be a heinous sin. 

It is also such, because it is a transgression of a prin- 
cipal law, or divine command. " This," saith St. John, " is 
7) ipTo\t) avrov, the command of him, That we should be- 
lieve ;" this, saith our Lord, is ^ ipyov rod 0eoC, the signal 
work of God (which God requireth of us), that "ye believe 
on him whom He hath sent :" that was a duty which our Lord 
and his apostles chiefly did teach, enjoin, and press ; where- 
fore correspondently infidelity is a great sin; according to 
St. John's notion, that sin is apopia, " the transgression of a 
law." 

But the sinfulness of infidelity will appear more fully by 



UNREASONABLE INFIDELITY. 



3i 



considering its nature and ingredients ; its causes ; its pro- 
perties and adjuncts ; its effects and consequences. 

I. In its nature it doth involve an affected blindness and 
ignorance of the noblest and most useful truths ; a bad use 
of reason, and most culpable imprudence; disregard of God's 
providence, or despite thereto ; abuse of His grace ; bad opi- 
nions of Him, and bad affections towards Him; for — 

God in exceeding goodness and kindness to mankind hath 
proposed a doctrine, in itself " faithful and worthy of all ac- 
ceptation' 7 , containing most excellent truths instructive of 
our mind and directive of our practice, toward attainment 
of salvation and eternal felicity; special overtures of mercy 
and grace most needful to us in our state of sinful guilt, of 
weakness, of wretchedness ; high encouragements and rich 
promises of reward for obedience : such a doctrine, with all 
its benefits, infidelity doth reject, " defeating the counsel of 
God", crossing His earnest desires of our welfare, " despising 
his goodness and patience." 

To this doctrine God hath yielded manifold clear attesta- 
tions, declaring it to proceed from Himself; ancient presig- 
nifications and predictions ; audible voices and visible appa- 
ritions from heaven, innumerable miraculous works, provi- 
dence concurring to the maintenance and propagation of it 
against most powerful oppositions and disadvantages : but 
all these testimonies infidelity slighteth, not fearing to give 
their author the lie, which wicked boldness St. John chargeth 
on it ; " He," saith the apostle, " that believeth not God, 
hath made Him a liar; because he believeth not the testi- 
mony God gave of his Son." 

Many plain arguments, sufficient to convince our minds, 



32 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



and win our belief, God hath furnished; the dictates of na- 
tural conscience, the testimony of experience, the records of 
history, the consent of the best and wisest men, do all con- 
spire to prove the truth, to recommend the usefulness of this 
doctrine ; but infidelity will not regard, will not weigh, will 
not yield to reason. 

God by His providence doth offer means and motives 
inducing to belief, by the promulgation of His gospel, and 
exhortation of His ministers : but all such methods infidelity 
doth void and frustrate ; " thrusting away the word, turning 
away the ear from the truth, letting the seed fall beside us, 
casting away the law of the Lord of Hosts;" in effect (as 
those in Job) " saying to God, Depart from us, for we desire 
not the knowledge of thy ways." 

God by His grace " doth shine on our hearts," doth attract 
our wills to compliance with His will, doth excite our affec- 
tions to relish His truth: but infidelity doth " resist His 
Spirit," doth quench the heavenly light, doth smother all the 
suggestions and motions of divine grace within us. 

What God asserteth, infidelity denieth, questioning His 
veracity ; what God commandeth, infidelity doth not approve, 
contesting His wisdom; what God promiseth, infidelity will 
not confide in, distrusting His fidelity or His power: such is 
its behaviour (so injurious, so rude, so foolish) toward God 
and His truth ; this briefly is its nature, manifestly involving 
great pravity, iniquity, and impiety. 

II. The causes and sources from whence k springeth 
(touched in Scripture, and obvious experience) are those 
which follow. 

i. It commonly doth proceed from negligence, or drowsy 



UNREASONABLE INFIDELITY. 33 



inobservance and carelessness ; when men being possessed 
with a " spirit of slumber", or being amused with secular 
entertainments, do not mind the concerns of their soul, or 
regard the means by God's merciful care presented for their 
conversion, being, in regard to religious matters, of Gallio's 
humour, " caring for none of those things" : thus, when the 
king in the gospel sent to invite persons to his wedding 
feast, it is said, oi 8e a^x^aavres an-fixeou, they " being careless, 
or not regarding it, went their ways, one to his field, another 
to his trade." Of such the apostle to the Hebrews saith, 
" How shall we escape, roiavTys afxexfaavres (TcoTrjpias, who re- 
gard not so great salvation", exhibited to us ? Of such Wis- 
dom complaineth ; " I have called, and ye refused ; I have 
stretched out my hand, and no man regarded." — " No man:" 
the greatest part indeed of men are, on this account, infidels, 
for that being wholly taken up in pursuit of worldly affairs 
and divertisements, in amassing of wealth, in driving on 
projects of ambition, in enjoying sensual pleasures, in gra- 
tifying their fancy and humour with vain curiosities or 
sports, they can hardly lend an ear to instruction ; so they 
become unacquainted with the notions of Christian doctrine ; 
the which to them are as " the seed falling by the way side", 
which those " fowls of the air" do snatch and devour before 
it sinketh down into the earth, or doth come under con- 
sideration. Hence is unbelief commonly termed not hearing 
God's voice, not hearkening to God's word, the din of worldly 
business rendering men deaf to divine suggestions. 

2. Another source of infidelity is sloth, which indisposeth 
men to undergo the fatigue of seriously attending to the 
doctrine propounded, of examining its grounds, of weighing 

D 



34 THE SILENT HOUR. 

the reasons inducing to believe ; whence at first hearing, if 
the notions hap not to hit their fancy, they do slight it be- 
fore they fully understand it, or know its grounds ; thence, 
at least, they must needs fail of a firm and steady belief, the 
which can alone be founded on a clear apprehension of the 
matter, and perception of its agreeableness to reason; so 
when the Athenians did hear St. Paul declaring the grand 
points of faith, somewhat in his discourse, uncouth to their 
conceit, falling from him, some of them did scorn, others 
did neglect his doctrine ; " some mocked ; others said, We 
will hear thee again of this matter f so Agrippa was " almost 
persuaded to be a Christian", but had not the industry to 
prosecute his inquiry till he arrived to a full satisfaction. A 
solid faith (with clear understanding and firm persuasion^ 
doth indeed, no less than any science, require sedulous and 
persevering study ; so that as a man can never be learned 
who will not be studious ; so a sluggard cannot prove a good 
believer. 

3. Infidelity doth arise from stupidity, or dulness of ap- 
prehension (I mean not that which is natural ; for any man 
in his senses, how low soever otherwise in parts or improve- 
ments, is capable to understand the Christian doctrine, and 
to perceive reason sufficient to convince him of its truth, 
but) contracted by voluntary indispositions and defects; a 
stupidity rising from mists of prejudice, from steams of lust 
and passion, from rust grown on the mind by want of ex- 
ercising it in observing and comparing things ; whence 
men cannot apprehend the clearest notions plainly repre- 
sented to them, nor discern the force of arguments, however 
evident and cogent; but are like those wizards in Job, who 



UNREASONABLE INFIDELITY. 



35 



" meet with darkness in the daytime, and grope at noonday, 
as in the night." 

This is that which is so often charged on the Jews as 
cause of their infidelity; who " did hear but not understand, 
and did see but not perceive ; because their heart was gross, 
and their ears were dull of hearing, and their eyes were 
closed this is that irdopwo-is napdtas, that numbness of heart, 
which is represented as the common obstruction to the per- 
ception and admission of our Lord's doctrine : this our Lord 
blamed in his own disciples when he rebuked them thus : 
" O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets 
have spoken !" Of this the apostle doth complain, telling 
the Hebrews that they were uncapable of improvement in 
knowledge, because they were vwQpol reus aKoa?s, dull of hear- 
ing for want of skill and use, " not having their senses ex- 
ercised to discern both good and evil" : there is, indeed, to a 
sound and robust faith required a good perspicacy of appre- 
hension, a penetrancy of judgment, a vigour and quickness of 
mind, grounded in the purity of our faculties, and confirmed 
by exercise of them in consideration of spiritual things. 

4. Another cause of infidelity is a bad judgment; cor- 
rupted with prejudicate notions, and partial inclinations to 
falsehood. Men are apt to entertain prejudices favourable 
to their natural appetites and humours, to their lusts, to their 
present interests ; dictating to them that wealth, dignity, fame 
pleasure, ease, are things most desirable, and necessary in- 
gredients of happiness, so that it is a sad thing in any case 
to want them: all men have strong inclinations biassing 
them towards such things; it is a hard thing to shake off 
such prejudices, and to check such inclinations ; it is, there- 



36 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



fore, not easy to entertain a doctrine representing such things t 
indifferent, obliging us sometimes to reject them, always to 
be moderate in the pursuit and enjoyment of them : where- 
fore infidelity will naturally spring up in a mind not cleansed 
from those corruptions of judgment. 

5. Another source of infidelity is perverseness of will, 
which hindereth men from entertaining notions disagreeable to 
their fond or froward humour ■ £ yevea ^maros Kal ZieaTpaufxivri, 
" O faithless and perverse generation !" those epithets are 
well coupled, for he that is perverse will be faithless ; in pro- 
portion to the one the other bad quality will prevail. " The 
weapons of the apostolical warfare (against the infidel world) 
were", as St. Paul telleth us, " mighty to the casting down of 
strong holds" : so it was ; and the apostles, by their discourse 
and demeanour, effectually did force many a strong fortress 
to surrender: but the will of some men is an impregnable 
bulwark against all batteries of discourse; they are so in- 
vincibly stubborn as to hold out against the clearest evidence 
and mightiest force of reason : if they do not like what you 
say, if it cross any humour of theirs, be it clear as day, be it 
firm as an adamant, they will not admit it ; you shall not 
persuade them, though you do persuade them. Such was 
the temper of the Jews, whom St. Stephen therefore calleth 
u a stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears"; 
who although they did hear the most winning discourse that 
ever was uttered, although they saw the most admirable 
works that ever were performed, yet they would not yield to 
the doctrine ; the mean garb of the persons teaching it, the 
spirituality of its design, the strict goodness of its precepts, 
and the like considerations, not sorting with their fancies 



UNREASONABLE INFIDELITY. 



37 



and desires; they hoping for a Messias arrayed with gay 
appearances of external grandeur and splendour, whose chief 
work it should be to settle their nation in a state of worldly 
prosperity and glory. 

6. This is that hardness of heart which is so often repre- 
sented as an obstruction of belief; this hindered Pharaoh, 
notwithstanding all those mighty works performed before 
him, from hearkening to God's word, and regarding the mis- 
chiefs threatened to come on him for his disobedience ; " i 
will not", said he, "let Israel go"; his will was his reason, 
which no persuasion, no judgment could subdue : this was 
the cause of that monstrous infidelity in the Israelites, which 
baffled all the methods which God used to persuade and 
convert them ; " Notwithstanding", it is said, " they would 
not hear, but hardened their necks, like to the necks of their 
fathers, that did not believe in the Lord their God" : whence 
that exhortation to them, " To-day if you will hear his voice, 
harden not your hearts." And to obduration the disbelief of 
the gospel on the apostles' preaching is in like manner as- 
cribed : St. Paul, it is said in the Acts, " went into the syna- 
gogue, and spake boldly for the space of three months, dis- 
puting and persuading the things concerning the kingdom 
of God : but divers were hardened, and believed not" : and 
" Exhort one another daily", saith the apostle, " lest any of 
you be hardened (in unbelief) through the deceitfulness of 
sin." 

7. Of kin to that perverseness of heart is that squeamish 
delicacy and niceness of humour, which will not let men 
entertain or savour anything, anywise seeming hard or harsh 
to them, if they cannot presently comprehend all that is said, 



38 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



if they can frame any cavil or little exception against it, if 
every scruple be not voided, if anything be required distaste- 
ful to their sense ; they are offended, and their faith is 
choked ; you must, to satisfy them, " speak to them smooth 
things", which nowise grate on their conceit or pleasure : so 
when our Lord discoursed somewhat mysteriously, represent- 
ing himself in the figure of heavenly bread (typified by the 
manna of old) given for the world, to sustain men in life, 
" Many of his disciples, hearing this, said, This is a hard 
saying, who can hear it ?" and " from that time many of his 
disciples went back, and walked no more with him" : this is 
that which is called being " scandalised at the word, and 
stumbling at it" ; concerning which our Saviour saith, " Bles- 
sed is he, whoever shall not be offended in me." 

In regard to this weakness, the apostles were fain in their 
instructions to use prudent dispensation, proposing only to 
some persons the most easy points of doctrine, they not 
being able to digest such as were more tough and difficult : " I 
have," saith St. Paul, " fed you with milk and not with meat ; 
for hitherto ye were not able to bear it — for ye are yet 
carnal"; and, " Ye," saith the apostle to the Hebrews, "are 
such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat." 

Such were even the apostles themselves in their minority; 
" not savouring the things of God" ; being offended at our 
Lord's discourses, when he spake to them of suffering; and 
with his condition, when he entered into it. 

8. With these dispositions is connected a want of love to 
truth ; the which if a man hath not, he cannot well entertain 
such notions as the gospel propoundeth, being nowise grate- 
ful to carnal sense and appetite: this cause St. Paul doth 



UNREASONABLE INFIDELITY. 



39 



assign of the Pagan doctors falling into so gross errors and 
vices, "because they did not like to retain God in their 
knowledge", and of men's revolting from Christian truth to 
antichristian imposture — " because they received not the love 
of truth, that they might be saved: for which cause God 
shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a 
lie" : nothing, indeed, but an impartial and ingenuous love 
of truth (overbalancing all corrupt prejudices and affections) 
can engage a man heartily to embrace this holy and pure 
doctrine, can preserve a man in a firm adherence thereto. 

9. A grand cause of infidelity is pride, the which doth in- 
terpose various bars to the admission of Christian truth ; for 
before a man can believe, km v^fxa, " every height (every 
towering imagination and conceit) that exalteth itself against 
the knowledge of God, must be cast down." 

Pride fills a man with vanity and an affectation of seeming 
wise in special manner above others, thereby disposing him 
to maintain paradoxes, and to nauseate common truths re- 
ceived and believed by the generality of mankind. 

A proud man is ever averse from renouncing his prejudices 
and correcting his errors ; doing which implieth a confession 
of weakness, ignorance, and folly, consequently depresseth 
him in his own conceit, and seemeth to impair that credit 
which he had with others from his wisdom ; neither of which 
events he is able to endure. 

He that is wise in his own conceit, will hug that conceit, 
and thence is uncapable to learn: "there is," saith Solomon, 
" more hope of a fool than of him" ; and he that affecteth the 
praise of men, will not easily part with it for the sake of 
truth ; whence, " How," saith our Lord, " can ye believe, who 



4o 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



receive glory one of another ?" how can ye, retaining such 
affections, be disposed to avow yourselves to have been igno- 
rants and fools, whenas ye were reputed for learned and wise? 
how can ye endure to become novices, who did pass for 
doctors ? how can ye allow yourselves, so blind and weak, as 
to have been deceived in your former judgment of things ? 

He that is conceited of his own wisdom, strength of parts, 
and improvement in knowledge, cannot submit his mind to 
notions which he cannot easily comprehend and penetrate ; 
he will scorn to have his understanding baffled or puzzled by 
sublime mysteries of faith ; he will not easily yield anything 
too high for his wit to reach, or too knotty for him to un- 
loose : " How can these things be ?" what reason can there 
be for this ? I cannot see how this can be true ; this point 
is not intelligible : so he treateth the dictates of faith ; not 
considering the feebleness and shallowness of his own rea- 
son : hence " not many wise men according to the flesh", (or 
who were conceited of their own wisdom, relying on their 
natural faculties and means of knowledge,) not many scribes, 
or " disputers of this world", did embrace the Christian truth, 
it appearing absurd and foolish to them ; it being needful 
that a man should " be a fool, that he might, in this regard, 
become wise." 

The prime notions of Christianity do also tend to the de- 
basing human conceit, and to the exclusion of all glorying 
in ourselves ; referring all to the praise and glory of God, 
ascribing all to his pure mercy, bounty, and grace ; it repre- 
sented all men heinous sinners, void of all worth and merit, 
lapsed into a wretched state, altogether impotent, forlorn, 
and destitute of ability to help or relieve themselves ; such 



UNREASONABLE INFIDELITY. 



4i 



notions proud hearts cannot digest ; they cannot like to avow 
their infirmities, their defects, their wants, theii vileness, and 
unworthiness ; their distresses and miseries ; they cannot 
endure to be entirely and absolutely beholden to favour and 
mercy for their happiness : such was the case of the Jews, 
who could not believe, because, "going about to establish 
their own righteousness, they would not submit to the righ- 
teousness of God." Dextra mihi Deus, every proud man 
would say, with the profane Mezentius. 

Christianity doth also much disparage and vilify those 
things, for which men are apt much to prize and pride them- 
selves ; it maketh small account of wealth, of honour, of 
power, of wit, of secular wisdom, of any human excellency 
or worldly advantage : it levelleth the rich and the poor, the 
prince and the peasant, the philosopher and idiot in spiritual 
regards ; yea, far preferreth the meanest and simplest person, 
endued with true piety, above the mightiest and wealthiest 
who is devoid thereof : in the eye of it, " The righteous is 
more excellent than his neighbour", whatever he be in worldly 
regard or state : this a proud man cannot support ; to be di- 
vested of his imaginary privileges, to be thrown down from 
his perch of eminency, to be set below those whom he so 
much despiseth, is insupportable to his spirit. 

The practice of Christianity doth also expose men to the 
scorn and censure of profane men ; who for their own solace, 
out of envy, revenge, diabolical spite, are apt to deride and 
reproach all conscientious and resolute practisers of their 
duty as silly, credulous, superstitious, humorous, morose, 
sullen folks : so that he that will be good, must resolve to 
hear that usage from them, like David, " I will yet be more 



42 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



vile than thus, and will be base in my own sight" : but with 
these sufferings a proud heart cannot comport ; it goeth too 
much against the grain thereof to be contemned. 

Christianity doth also indispensably require duties point- 
blank opposite to pride ; it placeth humility among its chief 
virtues, as a foundation of piety; it enjoineth us to think 
meanly of ourselves, to disclaim our own worth and desert, 
to have no complacency or confidence in anything belonging 
to us ; not to aim at high things ; to waive the regard and 
praise of men ; it exacteth from us a sense of our vileness : 
remorse, and contrition for our sins, with humbte confession 
of them, self-condemnation, and abhorrence ; it chargeth us 
to bear injuries and affronts, patiently, without grievous re- 
sentment, without seeking or so much as wishing any re- 
venge ; to undergo disgraces, crosses, disasters, willingly and 
gladly; it obligeth us "to prefer others before ourselves", 
sitting down in the lowest room, yielding to the meanest per- 
sons : to all which sorts of duty a proud mind hath an irre- 
concilable antipathy. 

A proud man, that is big and swollen with haughty conceit 
and stomach, cannot stoop down so low, cannot shrink in 
himself so much as to " enter into the strait gate, or to walk 
in the narrow way, which leadeth to life" : he will be apt to 
contemn wisdom and instruction. 

Shall I, will he say, such a gallant as I, so accomplished 
in worth, so flourishing in dignity, so plump with weallh, so 
highly regarded and renowned among men, thus pitifully 
crouch and sneak ? shall I deign to avow such beggarly no- 
tions, or bend to such homely duties ? shall I disown my 
perfections, or forego my advantages ? shall I profess myself 



UNREASONABLE INFIDELITY. 



43 



to have been a despicable worm, a villainous caitiff, a sorry 
wretch ? shall I suffer myself to be flouted as a timorous re- 
ligionist, a scrupulous precisian, a conscientious sneaksby? 
shall I lie down at the foot of mercy, puling in sorrow, whin- 
ing in confession, bewailing my guilt, and craving pardon ? 
shall I allow any man better or happier than myself? shall I 
receive those into consortship or equality of rank with me, 
who appear so much my inferiors ? shall I be misused and 
trampled on without doing myself right, and making them 
smart who shall presume to wrong or cross me? shall I 
be content to be nobody in the world? So the proud man 
will say in his heart, contesting the doctrines and duties of 
our religion, and so disputing himself into infidelity. 

10. Another spring of infidelity is pusillanimity, or want of 
good resolution and courage ; Isihol koX &m<rroL, " cowards and 
infidels", are well joined among those who are devoted to the 
fiery lake ; for timorous men dare not believe such doctrines, 
which engage them on undertaking difficult, laborious, dan- 
gerous enterprises : on undergoing hardships, pains, wants, 
disgraces ; on encountering those mighty and fierce enemies 
with whom every faithful man continually doth wage war. 

They have not the heart to look the world in the face 
when it frowneth at them, menacing persecution and dis- 
grace ; but " when affliction ariseth for the word, they are 
presently scandalised." It is said in the gospel that "no 
man spake freely of our Lord for fear of the Jews": as it so 
did smother the profession and muzzle the mouth, so it doth 
often stifle faith itself and quell the heart, men fearing to 
harbour in their very thoughts points dangerous and dis- 
countenanced by worldly power. 



44 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



They have not also courage to adventure a combat with 
their own flesh, and " those lusts which war against their 
souls" ; to set on correcting their temper, curbing their appe- 
tites, bridling their passions ; keeping flesh and blood in 
order ; on pulling out their right eyes, and cutting off their 
right hands, and crucifying their members, it daunteth them 
to attempt duties so harsh and painful. 

They have not the resolution to withstand and repel temp- 
tations, and in so doing to " wrestle with principalities and 
powers" ; to resist and baffle the " strong one." To part with 
their ease, their wealth, their pleasure, their credit, their ac- 
commodations of life, is a thing, any thought whereof doth 
quash all inclination in a faint and fearful heart of complying 
with the Christian doctrine. 

Christianity is a warfare; living after its rules is called 
" fighting the good fight of faith" ; every true Christian is a 
"good soldier of Jesus Christ"; the state of Christians must 
be sometimes like that of the apostles, who were " troubled 
on every side; without were fightings, within were fears"; 
great courage, therefore, and undaunted resolution, are re- 
quired toward the undertaking this religion, and the persist- 
ing in it cordially. 

11. Infidelity doth also rise from sturdiness, fierceness, 
wildness, untamed animosity of spirit; so that a man will 
not endure to have his will crossed, to be under any law, to 
be curbed from anything which he is prone to affect. 

12. Blind zeal, grounded on prejudice, disposing men to 
stiff adherence unto that which they have once been addicted 
and accustomed to, is in the Scripture frequently represented 
as a cause of infidelity. So the Jews, being " filled with zeal, 



UNREASONABLE INFIDELITY, 45 

contradicted the things spoken by St. Paul"; flying at his 
doctrine without weighing it : so " by instinct of zeal" did 
St. Paul himself persecute the church, being " exceedingly 
zealous for the traditions delivered by his fathers." 

In fine, infidelity doth issue from corruption of mind by 
any kind of brutish lust, any irregular passion, any bad in- 
clination or habit : any such evil disposition of soul doth ob- 
struct the admission or entertainment of that doctrine which 
doth prohibit and check it, — doth condemn it and brand it 
with infamy, — doth denounce punishment and woe to it : 
whence " men of corrupt minds, and reprobate concerning 
the faith", and " men of corrupt minds, destitute of the truth", 
are attributes well conjoined by St. Paul, as commonly jump- 
ing together in practice ; and " to them," saith he, " that are 
defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure, but even their mind 
and conscience is defiled" : such pollution is not only conse- 
quent to, and connected with, but antecedent to infidelity, 
blinding the mind so as not to see the truth, and perverting 
the will so as not to close with it. 

Faith and a good conscience are twins, born together, in- 
separable from each other, living and dying together ; for 
the first, faith is (as St. Peter telleth us) nothing else but 
" the stipulation of a good conscience", fully persuaded that 
Christianity is true, and firmly resolving to comply with it : 
and, " The end" (or drift and purport) " of the evangelical 
doctrine is charity out of a pure heart and a good conscience, 
and faith unfeigned" ; whence those apostolical precepts, " to 
hold the mystery of faith in a pure conscience" ; and "to 
hold faith and a good conscience, which some having put 
away concerning the faith, have made shipwreck" : a man 



46 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



void of good conscience will not embark in Christianity, and 
having laid good conscience aside, he will soon make ship- 
wreck of faith by apostasy from it. Resolute indulgence to 
any one lust is apt to produce this effect. 

If a man be covetous, he can "hardly enter the kingdom 
of heaven", or submit to that heavenly law, which forbiddeth 
us " to treasure up treasures on earth" ; which chargeth us to 
be liberal " in communication of our goods", so as to " give 
unto every one that asketh", which in some cases requireth 
to " sell all our goods, and to give them to the poor" ; which 
declareth that " whosoever doth not bid farewell to all that 
he hath, cannot be a disciple of Christ" ; which ascribeth 
" happiness to the poor", and denounceth " woe to the rich, 
who have their consolation here." Preach such doctrine to 
a covetous person, and as the young gentleman who " had 
great possessions", he will " go his way sorrowful" ; or will do 
like the Pharisees, who were " covetous", and having heard 
our Saviour discourse such things, " derided him" ; for " the 
love of money", saith St. Paul, " is the root of all evil, which 
while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith" ; 
aT€Tr\av7]erj(Tav } "they have wandered away", or apostatised 
from the faith. 

If a man be ambitious, he will not approve that doctrine, 
which prohibiteth us to affect, to seek, to admit glory, or to 
do anything for its sake, but purely to seek God's honour, 
and in all our actions to regard it as our principal aim: 
which greatly disparageth all worldly glory as vain, transi- 
tory, mischievous ; which commandeth us " in honour to pre- 
fer others before ourselves", and to " sit down in the lowest 
room"; which promiseth the best rewards to humility, and 



UNREASONABLE INFIDELITY. 



menaceth, that whoever " exalteth himself shall be abased", 
the profession and practice whereof are commonly attended 
with disgrace. Such doctrines ambitious minds cannot ad- 
mit, as it proved among the Jews, who therefore " could not 
believe, because they received glory from one another"; who 
therefore would not profess the faith, " because they loved 
the glory of men rather than the glory of God." 

If a man be envious, he will not like that doctrine which 
enjoineth him to desire the good of his neighbour as his own; 
to have complacence in the prosperity and dignity of his 
brethren, "not to seek his own, but every man another's 
wealth", or welfare, — " to rejoice with them that rejoice, and 
mourn with those that mourn" ; which chargeth us " to lay 
aside all envyings and emulations", under pain of damnation. 
He, therefore, who is possessed with an envious spirit or evil 
eye, will look ill on this doctrine, as the Jews did who, being 
full of envy and emulation, did reject the gospel, it being a 
grievous eyesore to them that the poor Gentiles were thereby 
admitted to favour and mercy. 

If a man be revengeful or spiteful, he will be scandalised 
at that law which commandeth us " to love our enemies", to 
" bless those that curse us", to " do good to them that hate 
us", to pray for them that despitefully use us' ; which forbid- 
deth us to " resist the evil", " to render evil for evil, or railing 
for railing" ; which chargeth us to bear patiently, and freely 
to remit all injuries, under penalty of forfeiting all hopes of 
mercy from God ; which requireth us to " depose all wrath, 
animosity, and malice", as inconsistent with our salvation ; 
which doctrine how can a heart swelling with rancorous 
grudge, or boiling with anger, embrace ? seeing it must be 



4 8 



THE SILENT HOUR, 



" in meekness that we must receive the engrafted word, that 
is able to save our souls." 

If a man be intemperate, he will loathe that doctrine, the 
precepts of which are, that we be " temperate in all things", 
that " we bring under our bodies", that we " endure hardship 
as good soldiers of Christ" ; to " avoid all excess" ; to " pos- 
sess our vessels in sanctiflcation and honour" ; to " mortify 
our members on earth"; to "crucify the flesh with its affec- 
tions and lusts" ; to " abstain from fleshly lusts, which war 
against the soul" ; with which precepts, how can a luxurious 
and filthy heart comport ? 

In fine, whatever corrupt affection a man be possessed 
with, it will work in him a distaste and repugnance to that 
doctrine,' which indispensably, as a condition of salvation, 
doth prescribe and require universal holiness, purity, inno- 
cence, virtue, and goodness ; which doth not allow any one 
sin to be fostered or indulged ; which threateneth wrath and 
vengeance on all impiety, iniquity, impurity, wherein we do 
obstinately persist, indifferently, without any reserve or re- 
medy, " wherein the wrath of God is revealed from heaven 
on all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, that detain 
the truth in unrighteousness." 

An impure, a dissolute, a passionate soul, cannot affect so 
holy motions, cannot comply with so strict rules as the gospel 
doth recommend : as a sore eye cannot like the bright day ; 
as a sickly palate cannot relish savoury food. " Every one 
that doeth evil hateth the light", because it discovereth to - 
him his own vileness and folly, — because it detecteth the 
sadness and wofulness of his condition, — because it kindleth 
anguish and remorse within him, — because it checketh him 



UNREASONABLE INFIDELITY. 49 

in the free pursuit of his bad designs, it dampeth the brisk 
enjoyment of his unlawful pleasures, it robbeth him of satis- 
faction and glee in any vicious course of practice. 

Every man is unwilling to entertain a bad conceit of him- 
self, and to pass on himself a sad doom : he therefore will 
be apt to reject that doctrine, which being supposed true, he 
cannot but confess himself to be an arrant fool, he cannot 
but grant himself a forlorn wretch. 

No man liketh to be galled, to be stung, to be racked with 
a sense of guilt, to be scared with a dread of punishment, 
to live under awe and apprehension of imminent danger ; 
gladly, therefore, would he shun that doctrine which demon- 
strateth him a grievous sinner, — which speaketh dismal terror, 
— which thundereth ghastly woe on him. 

He cannot love that truth which is so much his enemy, 
which so rudely treateth and severely persecuteth him ; which 
telleth him so bad and unwelcome news. 

Who would be content to deem Omnipotency engaged 
against him? to fancy himself standing on the brink of a 
fiery lake ? to hear a roaring lion ready to devour him ? to 
suppose that certain which is so dreadful and sad to him ? 

Hence it is that " the carnal mind is enmity to God"; 
hence do bad men " rebel against the light" ; hence " foolish 
men shall not attain to wisdom, and sinners shall not see 
her ; for she is far from pride, and men that are liars cannot 
remember her." 

Hence a man, resolvedly wicked, cannot but be willing to 
be an infidel in his own defence, for his own quiet and ease ; 
faith being a companion very incommodious, intolerably 
troublesome to a bad conscience. 

E 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



Being resolved not to forsake his lusts, he must quit those 
opinions which cross them ; seeing it expedient that the gospel 
should be false, he will be inclinable to think it so : thus he 
sinketh down, — thus he tumbleth himself headlong into the 
gulf of infidelity. 

The custom of sinning doth also by degrees so abate, and 
at length so destroy, the loathsomeness, the ugliness, the 
horror thereof doth so reconcile it to our minds, yea con- 
ciliateth such a friendship to it, that we cannot easily believe it 
so horrid and base a thing as by the gospel it is represented 
to us. 

Vicious practice doth also weaken the judgment and stu- 
pify the faculties. So that we cannot clearly apprehend or 
judge soundly about spiritual matters. 

The same also quencheth God's spirit, and driveth away 
his grace, which is requisite to the production and preserva- 
tion of faith in us. 

14. In fine, from what spirit infidelity doth proceed we may 
see by the principles commonly with it espoused, for its sup- 
port and countenance, by its great masters and patrons ; all 
which do rankly savour of baseness and ill-nature. 

They do libel and revile mankind as void of all true good- 
ness, from the worst qualities of which they are conscious 
themselves or can observe in others, patching up an odious 
character of it; thus shrouding themselves under common 
blame from that which is due to their own wickedness, and 
dispensing with that charity and honesty, which is by God's 
law required from them toward their neighbour ; and having 
so bad an opinion of all men, they consequently must bear 
ill-will toward them, it not being possible to love that which 
we do not esteem. 



UNREASONABLE INFIDELITY. 51 



They allow nothing in man to be immaterial or immortal, 
so turning him into a beast or into a puppet, a whirligig of 
fate or chance. 

They ascribe all actions and events to necessity or external 
impulse, so raising the grounds of justice and all virtue, that 
no man may seem responsible for what he doth, commend- 
able or culpable, amiable or detestable. 

They explode all natural difference of good and evil, de- 
riding benignity, mercy, pity, gratitude, ingenuity, — that is, 
all instances of goodnature, as childish and silly dispositions. 

All the relics of God's image in man, which raise him 
above a beast, and distinguish him from a fiend, they scorn 
and expose to contempt. 

They extol power as the most admirable, and disparage 
goodness as a pitiful thing ; so preferring a devil before an 
angel. 

They discard conscience, as a bugbear to fright children 
and fools ; allowing men to compass their designs by violence, 
fraud, slander, any wrongful ways ; so banishing all the secu- 
rities (beside selfishness and slavish fear) of government, 
conversation, and commerce ; so that nothing should hinder 
a man (if he can do it with advantage to himself and pro- 
bable safety) to rebel against his prince, to betray his coun- 
try, to abuse his friend, to cheat any man with whom he 
dealeth. 

Such are the principles (not only avowed in common dis- 
course, but taught and maintained in the writings) of our in- 
fidels, whereby the sources of it do appear to be a deplorable 
blindness and desperate corruption of mind, — an extinction 
of natural light, and extirpation of goodnature. Farther, 



52 



THE SILEXT HOUR, 



III. The naughtiness of infidelity will appear by consider- 
ing its effects and consequences, which are plainly a spawn 
of all vices and villanies, a deluge of all mischiefs and out- 
rages on the earth ; for faith being removed, together with it 
all conscience goeth ; no virtue can remain ; all sobriety of 
mind, all justice in dealing, all security in conversation are 
packed away; nothing resteth to encourage men unto any 
good, or restrain them from any evil ; all hopes of reward 
from God, all fears of punishment from Him being discarded, 
No principle or rule of practice is left beside brutish sen- 
suality, fond self-love, private interest in their highest pitch, 
without any bound or curb ; which, therefore, will dispose 
men to do nothing but to prey on each other with all cruel 
violence and base treachery. Every man, thence, will be a 
god to himself, a fiend to each other ; so that necessarily the 
world will thence be turned into a chaos and a hell, full of 
iniquity and impurity, of spite and rage, of misery and tor- 
ment. It depriveth each man of all hope from Providence, 
all comfort and support in affliction, of all satisfaction in 
conscience, of all the good things which faith doth yield. 

The consideration of which numberless and unspeakable 
mischiefs hath engaged statesmen in every commonwealth to 
support some kind of faith as needful to the maintenance of 
public order, of traffic, of peace among men. 

It would suffice to persuade an infidel, that hath a scrap of 
wit (for his own interest, safety, and pleasure), to cherish 
faith in others, and wish all men beside himself endued 
with it. 

It in reason obligeth all men to detest atheistical sup- 
planters of faith, as desperate enemies to mankind, enemies 



UNREASONABLE INFIDELITY. 



53 



to government, destructive of common society; especially 
considering that of all religions that ever were, or can be, the 
Christian doth most conduce to the benefit of public society; 
enjoining all virtues useful to preserve it in a quiet and 
flourishing state, teaching loyalty under pain of damnation. 

I pass by that " without faith no man can please God", that 
infidelity doth expose men to his wrath and severest ven- 
geance ; that it depriveth of all joy and happiness, seeing 
infidels will not grant such effects to follow their sin, but will 
reject the supposition of them as precarious and fictitious. 

To conclude therefore the point, it is, from what we have 
said, sufficiently manifest that infidelity is a very sinful dis- 
temper, as being in its nature so bad, being the daughter of 
so bad causes, the sister of so bad adjuncts, the mother of 
so bad effects. 

But this you will say is an improper subject ; for is there 
any such thing as infidelity in Christendom ? are we not all 
Christians, all believers, all baptised into the faith, and pro- 
fessors of it? do we not every day repeat the Creed, or at 
least say Amen thereto ? do we not partake of the holy mys- 
teries, sealing this profession ? what do you take us for ? for 
Pagans ? this is a subject to be treated of in Turkey, or in 
partibus infidelium. This may be said : but if we consider 
better, we shall find ground more than enough for such dis- 
course ; and that infidelity hath a larger territory than we 
suppose : for (to pass over the swarms of atheistical apostates, 
which so openly abound, denying or questioning our religion) 
many infidels do lurk under the mask of Christian profession. 
It is not the name of Christian, or the badges of our religion, 
that make a Christian ; no more than a cowl doth make a 



54 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



monk, or the beard a philosopher. There may be a creed in 
the mouth where there is no faith in the heart, and a cross 
impressed on the forehead of an infidel, — " with the heart man 
believeth to righteousness." " Show me thy faith by thy 
works," saith St. James : if no works be showed, no faith is 
to be granted ; as where no fruit, there no root, or a dead 
root, which in effect and moral esteem is none at all. 

Is he not an infidel who denieth God? such a renegadois 
everyone that liveth profanely, as St. Paul telleth us. And 
have we not many such renegadoes ? if not, what meaneth 
that monstrous dissoluteness of life, that horrid profaneness 
of discourse, that strange neglect of God's service, a desola- 
tion of God's law ? Where such luxury, such lewdness, such 
avarice, such uncharitableness, such universal carnality doth 
reign, can faith be there ? can a man believe there is a God, 
and so affront Him ? can he believe that Christ reigneth in 
heaven, and so despise his laws ? can a man believe a judg- 
ment to come, and so little regard his life, — a heaven, and so 
little seek it, — a hell and so little shun it ? — Faith, therefore, 
is not so rife, infidelity is more common than we may take it 
to be ; every sin hath a spice of it, — some sins smell rankly 
of it. 

To it are attributed all the rebellions of the Israelites, 
which are the types of all Christian professors, who seem 
travellers in this earthly wilderness toward the heavenly 
Canaan ; and to it all the enormities of sin and overflowings 
of iniquity may be ascribed. 

I should proceed to urge the precept, that we " take heed 
thereof", but the time will not allow me to do it ; I shall only 
suggest to your meditation the heads of things. 



UNREASONABLE INFIDELITY. 



It is infidelity that maketh men covetous, uncharitable, 
discontent, pusillanimous, impatient. Because men believe 
not Providence, therefore they do so greedily scrape and 
hoard. They do not believe any reward for charity, there- 
fore they will part with nothing. They do not hope for suc- 
cour from God, therefore are they discontent and impatient. 

They have nothing to raise their spirits, therefore are they 
abject. 

Infidelity did cause the devil's apostasy. Infidelity did 
banish man from Paradise (trusting to the devil, and dis- 
trusting God's word). Infidelity (disregarding the warnings 
and threats of God) did bring the deluge on the world. 

Infidelity did keep the Israelites from entering into Ca- 
naan, the type of heaven, as the apostle to the Hebrews doth 
insist. 

Infidelity, indeed, is the root of all sin ; for did men heartily 
believe the promises to obedience, and threats to disobedi- 
ence, they could hardly be so unreasonable as to forfeit the 
one, or incur the other ; did they believe that the Omnipotent, 
all-wise, most just, and severe God, did command and re- 
quire such a practice, they could hardly dare to omit or 
transgress. Let it therefore suffice to have declared the evil 
of infidelity, which alone is sufficient inducement to avoid it. 



THE 

GREAT LOSS OF THE WORLDLINGS. 



MONG the enjoyments of time, they shall parti- 
cularly lose — their presumptuous belief of their 
interest in the favour of God, and the merits of 
Christ ; all their hopes ; all their false peace of 
conscience ; all their carnal mirth ; and all their sensual 
delights. 

They shall lose their presumptuous belief of their interest 
m the favour of God, and the merits of Christ. This false 
belief now supports their spirits, and defends them from the 
terrors that would otherwise seize upon them. But what will 
ease their trouble, when they can believe no longer, nor re- 
joice any longer ? If a man be near to the greatest mischief, 
and yet strongly conceit that he is in safety, he may be as 
cheerful as if all were well. If there were no more to make a 
man happy, but to believe that he is so, or shall be so, happi- 
ness would be far more common than it is like to be. As 
true faith is the leading grace in the regenerate, so is false 
faith the leading vice in the unregenerate. Why do such 
multitudes sit still, when then they might have pardon, but 
that they verily think they are pardoned already? If you 




GREAT LOSS OF THE WORLDLINGS. 57 

could ask thousands in hell, what madness brought them 
thither? they would most of them answer, "We made sure of 
being saved, till we found ourselves damned. We would have 
been more earnest seekers of regeneration and the power of 
godliness, but we verily thought we were Christians before. 
We have flattered ourselves into these torments, and now 
there is no remedy." Reader, I must in faithfulness tell thee, 
that the confident belief of their good state, which the care- 
less, unholy, unhumbled multitude so commonly boast of, will 
prove in the end but a soul-damning delusion. There is none 
of this believing in hell. It was Satan's stratagem, that being 
blindfold they might follow him the more boldly ; but then 
he will uncover their eyes, and they shall see where they are. 

They shall lose also all their hopes. In this life, though 
they were threatened with the wrath of God, yet their hope of 
escaping it bore up their hearts. We can now scarcely speak 
with the vilest drunkard, or swearer, or scoffer, but he hopes 
to be saved for all this. O happy world, if salvation were as 
common as this hope ! Nay, so strong are men's hopes, 
that they will dispute the cause with Christ himself at judg- 
ment, and plead their having eat and drank in his presence, 
and prophesied in his name, and in his name cast out devils ; 
they will stiffly deny that ever they neglected Christ in 
hunger, nakedness, or prison, till he confutes them with the 
sentence of their condemnation. O the sad state of these 
men, when they must bid farewell to all their hopes ! When 
a wicked man dieth, his expectation shall perish ; and the 
hope of unjust men-perisheth.* The eyes of the wicked shall 



* Prov. xi, 7. 



5$ 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



fail, and they shall not escape, and their hope shall be as the 
giving up of the ghost.* The giving up the ghost, is a fit, but 
terrible resemblance of a wicked man's giving up his hopes. 
As the soul departeth not from the body without the greatest 
pain ; so doth the hope of the wicked depart. The soul de- 
parts from the body suddenly, in a moment, which hath there 
delightfully continued so many years ; just so doth the hope 
of the wicked depart. The soul will never more return to live 
with the body in this world : and the hope of the wicked takes 
an everlasting farewell of his soul. A miracle of resurrection 
shall again unite soul and body, but there shall be no such 
miraculous resurrection of the damned's hope. Methinks, it 
is the most pitiable sight this world affords, to see such an 
ungodly person dying, and to think of his soul and his hopes 
departing together. With what a sad change he appears in 
another world ! Then if a man could but ask that hopeless 
soul, "Are you as confident of salvation as you were wont to 
be ?" What a sad answer would be returned ! O that care- 
less sinners would be awakened to think of this in time ! 
Reader, rest not till thou canst give a reason of all thy hopes 
grounded upon scripture promises ; that they purify thy 
heart ; that they quicken thy endeavours in godliness ; that 
the more thou hopest the less thou sinnest, and the more 
exact is thy obedience. If thy hopes be such as these, go on 
in the strength of the Lord, hold fast thy hope, and never 
shall it make thee ashamed. But if thou hast not one sound 
evidence of a work of grace on thy soul, cast away thy hopes; 
Despair of ever being saved except thou be born again ; or of 



* Job. xi, 20. 



GREAT LOSS OF THE WORLDLINGS. 59 



seeing God without holiness ; or of having part in Christ, ex- 
cept thou love him above father, mother, or thy own life. 
This kind of despair is one of the first steps to heaven. If a 
man be quite out of his way, what must be the first means to 
bring him in again ? He must despair of ever coming to his 
journey's end in the way that he is in : if his home be east- 
ward, and he is going westward, as long as he hopes he is 
right, he will go on ; and as long as he goes on hoping, he 
goes further amiss : when he despairs of coming home, except 
he turn back, then he will return, and then he may hope. Just 
so it is, sinner, with thy soul ; thou art born out of the way to 
heaven, and hast proceeded many a year ; thou goest on, and 
hopest to be saved, because thou art not so bad as many 
others. Except thou throwest away these hopes, and see 
that thou hast all this while been quite out of the way to 
heaven, thou wilt never return and be saved. There is 
nothing in the world more likely to keep thy soul out of 
heaven, than thy false hopes of being saved, while thou art 
out of the way to salvation. See then how it will aggravate 
the misery of the damned, that, with the loss of heaven, they 
shall lose all that hope of it, which now supports them. 

They will lose all that false peace of conscience, which 
makes their present life so easy. Who would think, that sees 
how quietly the multitude of the ungodly live, that they must 
very shortly lie down in everlasting flames ? They are as free 
from the fears of hell as an obedient believer : and for the 
most part have less disquiet of mind than those who shall be 
saved. Happy men, if this peace would prove lasting ! 
When they shall say, peace and safety ; then sudden destruc- 
tion cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child, 



6o 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



and they shall not escape * O cruel peace, which ends in 
such a war ! The soul of every man by nature is Satan's 
' garrison ; all is at peace in such a man till Christ comes, and 
gives it terrible alarms of judgment and hell, batters it with 
the ordnance of his threats and terrors, forces it to yield to 
his mere mercy, and take him for the Governor ; then doth 
he cast out Satan, overcome him, take from him all his ar- 
mour wherein he trusted, and divideth his spoils,t and then 
doth he establish a firm and lasting peace. If therefore thou 
art yet in that first peace, never think it will endure. Can 
thy soul have lasting peace, in enmity with Christ? Can he 
have peace against whom God proclaims war ? I wish thee 
no greater good, than that God break in upon thy careless 
heart, and shake thee out of thy false peace, and make thee 
lie down at the feet of Christ, and say, Lord, what wouldst 
thou have me to do? and so receive from him a better and 
surer peace, which will never be quite broken, but be the be- 
ginning of thy everlasting peace, and not perish in thy 
perishing, as the groundless peace of the world will do. 

They shall lose all their carnal mirth. They will them- 
selves say of their laughter, it is mad, and of their mirth, 
what doth it?$ It was but as the crackling of thorns under a 
pot.§ It made a blaze for a while, but it was presently gone, 
and returned no more. The talk of death and judgment was 
irksome to them, because it damped their mirth. They could 
not endure to think of their sin and danger, because these 
thoughts sunk their spirits. They knew not what it was to 
weep for sin, or to humble themselves under the mighty hand 



I Thess. v, 3. f Lukexi, 22. % Eccl. ii, 2. § Ibid., vii, 6. 



GREAT LOSS OF THE WORLDLINGS. 61 



of God. They could laugh away sorrow, and sing away cares, 
and drive away those melancholy thoughts. To meditate, 
and pray, they fancied would be enough to make them 
miserable or run mad. Poor souls ! what a misery will that 
life be, where you shall have nothing but sorrow ; intense, 
heart-piercing, multiplied sorrow ; when you shall neither 
have the joy of saints, nor your own former joys ! Do you 
think there is one merry heart in hell ? or one joyful coun- 
tenance, or jesting tongue? You now cry, A little mirth is 
worth a great deal of sorrow. But, surely, a little godly sor- 
row, which would have ended in eternal joy, had been worth 
much more than all your foolish mirth ; for the end of such 
mirth is sorrow. 

They shall also lose all their sensual delights. That which 
they esteemed their chief good, their heaven, their god, must 
they lose, as well as God himself. What a fall will the proud 
ambitious man have from the top of his honours ! As his 
dust and bones will not be known from the dust and bones of 
the poorest beggar ; so neither will his soul be honoured or 
favoured more than theirs. What a number of the great, 
noble, and learned, will be shut out of the presence of Christ? 
They shall not find their magnificent buildings, soft beds, and 
easy couches. They shall not view their curious gardens, 
their pleasant meadows and plenteous harvests. Their tables 
will not be so furnished, nor attended. The rich man is there 
no more clothed in purple and fine linen, nor fareth sumptu- 
ously every day. There is no expecting the admiration of 
beholders. They shall spend their time in sadness, and not 
in sports and pastimes. What an alteration will they then 
find ! The heat of their lust will be then abated. How will 



62 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



it even cut them to the heart to look each other in the face ! 
What an interview will there then be, cursing the day that 
ever they saw one another ! O that sinners would now re- 
member, and say, "Will these delights accompany us into 
the other world ? Will not the remembrance of them be then 
our torment ? shall we then take this partnership in vice for 
true friendship ? Why should we sell such lasting, incom- 
prehensible joys for a taste of seeming pleasure? Come, as 
we have sinned together, let us pray together, that God would 
pardon us ; and let us help one another toward heaven, in- 
stead of helping to deceive and destroy each other." O that 
men knew but what they desire, when they would so fain 
have all things suited to the desires of the flesh ! It is but 
to desire their temptations to be increased and their snares 
strengthened. 



THE PRAYERS OF MANKIND. 




ATURE," says an atheist, who rejoices not in 
that appellation, but in the more euphonious one 
of secularist, " acts with fearful uniformity. Stern 

! as fate, absolute as tyranny, remorseless as death ; 



too vast to praise, too inexorable to propitiate, it has no ear 
for prayer ; no heart for sympathy ', no arm to save" 

Perhaps there was never a more pathetic sentence written 
than that. Let us imagine it to be true, what a blank look- 
out does it give to us all ! How, like orphans, it leaves us 
fatherless, without a guide, without help when we lie upon 
our sick bed, alone in the dark mine, without a friend in pri- 
son, overwhelmed in the waters of the deep and vast ocean, 
or while we have this body to cling to, simply like a vast 
lump of a rudderless wreck, without sail or motive power, 
drifting about upon the dark waters of life ! Happily this 
prideful and melancholy pathos is untrue, as untrue as it is 
sad ; for One whom we believe to be inspired by Absolute 
Truth, and who lighteth every man that cometh into the 
world, disposed long ago of the fallacy by simply saying 
" Knock, and it shall be opened." 

The reason why the atheist above cited wrote that very 
pathetic sentence was probably a compound one, in which 



6 4 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



pride had a great deal to do. And the wrathful and proud 
heart, which may be, and often is, a very tender one, says 
more against goodness, simplicity, faith, and prayer than any 
other. It is your pet in the sulks who uses the naughtiest 
words, and makes the ugliest faces ; your most spirited horse 
which, when he runs away, is the most dangerous ; and so 
this man, who has elevated himself on the proud pedestal ot 
neglect, is no doubt benevolent and good in many ways, and 
perhaps even half believes what he has written. It is a grand 
thing for man to imagine himself sole king of the elements, 
the only soul that dares to war against Nature — often its 
victim ; but gradually to be, and often even now, its con- 
queror. When a victim, man stands like Ajax defying the 
lightning — like Campbell's last man, speaking proud words 
against the sun : when, however, he conquers Nature, as he 
does when he drains the swamp, makes the barren plain fer- 
tile, chains the lightning for his messenger, turns the course 
of rivers, makes rain to come from natural causes, and the 
sterile plains laugh with lilies and roses, man is even greater. 
His loneliness is partly gone, he takes counsel with his own 
proud heart, he defies the world, and gathers treasures into 
his barns, and crowns him king over his fellows. But even 
there — 

' £ Within the hollow crown, 
That rounds the mortal temples of a king, 
Keeps 'Death his court : and there the antic sits, 
Scoffing his state, and grinning at his pomp ; 
Allowing him a breath, a little scene 
To monarchize, be fear'd, and kill with looks ; 
Infusing him with self and vain conceit, 
As if this flesh, which walls about our life, 



THE PRA VERS OF MANKIND. 



65 



Were brass impregnable ; and humour'd thus, 

Comes at the last, and with a little pin 

Bores through the castle wall, and — farewell king !" 

And then these deaths of our friends, our best and bravest, 
our fairest, cleverest, and most loved, our chief at board and 
most honoured in council, tell us what we are a long time in 
crediting, that we too shall die — that / shall die, I who am 
reading this — and that the world is, after all, not all ; is in- 
deed the mere vestry, belike, wherein the preacher clothes 
himself for his duty, or the 'tiring room, as the old dramatists 
have it, wherein the actor puts on his clothes before playing 
his part. So then we are again thrown back upon prayer. 
We find it natural, an out-breathing, as natural as it is to 
sigh or to weep ; fit, too, for that other view of man, the help- 
less creature whose wants are so many, whose defensive aids 
are so few. A very natural thing to such a creature is aid 
external to him, yet acting in him. Such aid he finds in 
prayer. 

Although certain individuals have held that to pray is a 
weakness unworthy of Man, and equally unworthy of God, 
it is certain that no nation ever existed as a prayerless nation ; 
and it is something to consider that if these bold individuals 
dissuade from prayer, they do so to put before man what 
they think to be a higher occupation. The acute mind of 
Coleridge, as we have before shown, put before us all that 
can be said against prayer, and that may fairly be urged, but 
as fairly met. God is a spirit, omniscient, and so beneficent, 
that— 

"Of his all-seeing Providence 
Aught to demand were impotence of mind." 

F 



66 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



There you get all that can possibly be said with any weight. 
All other excuses for no prayer are very childish, — such as, 
(i.) Do you think you are important enough for God to 
bless or hear ? — Of course I do ; I w T as important enough for 
Him to make. 

(2.) Will so enormous, so all-powerful a spirit, stoop to 
listen to you ? — Why not ? If we limit His beneficence and 
capacity to help, we limit His power. 

(3.) What is the use of prayer? If we are to have what 
we ask for, we shall ; if not, we shall not. — Blank fatalism. 
If our farmers with their grains, our cooks with our dinners, 
argued so, we should have no harvest, and should discharge 
the cook. So every other objection may be met, and Cole- 
ridge soon saw the fallacy of his own. The men of prayers 
and the nations of prayers always succeed. And this brings 
a fourth objection and a fourth answer. 

(4,) You demand an answer to your prayer; you ask 
for a special providence or interference, — then you de- 
mand a. miracle? — Xo, I do not; all which the Creator 
does is miraculous, but a miracle is the suspension of a 
natural law. Now, as far as observation goes, the law is, 
that in some general efficient ways, all prayers are an- 
swered. The miracle would therefore be if true prayers were 
not answered. If we look around us, we must own that the 
most peaceful, prosperous, gentle, good, strong, brave, and 
wise people, the boldest, handsomest, and most well-liking 
too. although not always the richest, are those who pray. 
The people who possess the earth, who go about life boldly 
and prosperously, who fight as if they had an army of reserve 
always to back them, and who run the race as if they meant 



THE PRA VERS OF MANKIND. 



67 



to win it, are those who pray. They may, often they do, 
direct their prayers wrongly, and are selfish, foolish people, 
who want driving like sheep, but they get that driving, there 
is no doubt of that, and being watched and tended all day, 
they reach the fold at last. 

One of the most sad reflections about prayer is, that it is 
often put up to idols, unworthy images, false gods ; and, 
when proffered to the true God, that it is turned aside for 
foolish, interested, and unworthy motives, to which God must 
be deaf. But as man is a praying and imperfect creature, 
notwithstanding his noble heritage and the grand future be- 
fore him, this is simply what was to be expected. One of 
the wise things that Sir Thomas Browne did when he was 
abroad, was to kneel down amongst the Spaniards, — who 
would have run him through else, — and pray when the Ave- 
Mary bell sounded ; not that he prayed to her, to a woman 
or an eidolon, but that, while others were ordering their 
prayers wrongly, he thought it best that he should order his 
aright. And it is sad to think that the curse of David upon 
the wicked man, " let his prayer become sin", has come to 
pass upon many peoples. It is a marvel that, when the Jews 
were careless of their God and went after idols, He was with 
them, calling them to Him ; and that, after the veil was rent, 
and the voice was heard, " Arise, let us go hence", no people 
have been more earnest in their solicitations, nor more pa- 
thetic and eloquent in their prayers. But the Ark of the 
Covenant is not now with them. So we can all, as indeed 
we have reason, sympathise with those nations who have 
" battled for the true, the just, and built them fanes of fruit- 
less prayer' 7 ; for, mystery of mysteries, man has so far wan- 



63 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



dered out of his way that, upon his death only, the rift of the 
cloud may blow away, and he may find that all his life he 
has been in the wrong. To us, let us hope, this cannot well 
happen, unless, out of conceit, we go backwards to a prayer- 
less ignorance, and saying that we know nothing, as is the 
fashion of the day, end by really knowing nothing. In one 
of Browning's most intense and piercing poems, " Cleon", 
who was a Grecian philosopher of the time of St. Paul — that 
busy questioning and sceptical time so like our own — Cleon 
says that he knows man thoroughly, and woman also : 

"And I have written three books on the soul, 
Proving absurd all written hitherto, 
And putting us to ignorance again." 

So, many of our teachers to-day " put us to ignorance again," 
urging the folly of man's piercing through the clouds of va- 
porous error which o'erhang the world. 

And what, then, is prayer, the real thing, the key of Hea- 
ven, which we all would possess ? James Montgomery has 
given the simplest answer : " Prayer is the soul's sincere de- 
sire, utter'd or unexpress'd f and, that the desire should be 
sincere and true, we must first know what we want ; we must 
know whether that want be in accordance with God's will ; 
we must not offer the prayer of a fool, nor the sincere de- 
sire of a child who cries for the moon, or for what is hurt- 
ful ; for it is no easy thing to pray. Shakspere, who was 
not ignorant upon this point, has spoken out plainly enough, 
and, as usual, truly ; and we would cite him rather than 
bishops and pastors, because our atheist secularist may bow 
to his great wisdom. He pictures the struggles of the heart 
in a man whose prayers fly up uselessly to Heaven, while his 



THE ERA YERS OF MANKIND. 



69 



heart and spirit remain below ; who feels that his prayers are 
useless ; and he tells us, moreover, that — 

" The gods are deaf to hot and peevish vows : 
They are polluted offerings, more abhorr'd 
Than spotted livers in the sacrifice." 

John Bunyan and Jeremy Taylor knew as much about prayer 
as most modern men, but their testimony might be suspected. 
What is wanted is the testimony of a man of the world — a 
philosopher — one who knows ; and here it is : " Is not prayer," 
asks Emerson, " a study of the truth — a sally of the soul into 
the unfound infinite ? No man ever prayed heartily without 
learning something ; but when a faithful thinker, resolute to 
detach every object from personal relations, and see it in the 
light of thought, shall at the same time kindle science with 
the fire of the holiest affections, then will God go forth anew 
into the creation." Now, here is a man who tells you in a 
roundabout way what Christ tells us so simply. If we had 
faith, then would our prayers remove mountains ; but not 
having true faith, we beg often our own harms. Riches — 
possibly to nations a blessing, but not always — are to the in- 
dividual, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, a curse. 
There is not a rich man living but will tell you the same, if 
he speak truly ; and yet how many prayers go up to Heaven 
every day (the end of which, concealed, it may be, in some 
mental subterfuge, is) " Lord, make me rich, make me power- 
ful !" If a queen — poor soul ! she was more miserable than 
those miserable ladies generally are — could write " Lord keep 
me innocent ; make others great !" why cannot we bind down 
our minds to our present duties, and, fulfilling them, wait 
God's good time to rise ? Do we think that He who set in 



7o 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



order the unnumbered stars does not set man in order ? All 
prayerless striving is foolish, abominable, selfish, and comes 
to no good end. 

Some men are prayerless, as we know ; and of the praying 
ones, not many of us pray more than a few times in our lives. 
Morning and evening we may kneel and say our form of 
prayer, and it is as well that we have a form, — perfect, beau- 
tiful, sufficient, all-excellent ; but the high exaltation of feel- 
ing that our spirit is in communion with the Eternal Spirit, 
the highest ecstacy, and the very flower of prayer, comes 
but seldom to us. Yet even in the every-day and jog-trot 
form, which — say what ritualists and revivalists may — must 
perforce be more or less efficient, there is a sweet-soothing 
influence of confidence and trust which no wise man would 
miss. And when man has not even ordered his prayers 
rightly, he will yet find in the spirit of prayer something 
which upholds him. Lord Herbert of Cherbury, who was a 
profound philosopher, when about to publish his book, knelt 
down and prayed to God, — and he was a deist, a good and 
pure one, — and believed that the very Heavens answered 
him, and that a light shone into his room ; and this he took 
as an omen. But his book did little good, and is as dead 
now as dead can be. So we will not believe in Lord Her- 
bert's vision, and have cited him only to show that one effect 
of prayer is always certain, and that is, it subjects our will 
to the Divine Will, eases off all disappointments, knits 
up like sleep the " ravelled sleeve of care", and unburdens 
the busy, much-thinking, and overfraught mind. It is a 
blessed anodyne which makes us forget injuries as we forgive 
them and pray to be forgiven, and which carries our minds 



THE PRA VERS OF MANKIND. 



71 



towards our friends afar off and near, and creates a true 
communion of saints, a common spirit between all, and ele- 
vating to all ; and, to be good prayer, it must be humble. 
Some men absolutely dare to reason with and to order about 
God. " Thou knowest," said Lord Ashley at Edgehill, " how 
busy I am to be this day ; if I forget Thee, do not Thou 
forget me". Others entreat Him like the storm-stricken sailor 
in Erasmus, who promises the Virgin so many wax candles, 
even as big as a church, and who, when told by a friend 
that he would ruin himself with his offerings, answers, 
" Tush, man ! I don't mean what I say ; only let me get out 
of the storm, and she shall only have an ordinary candle 
or so." 

Few pray in the spirit of the one great prayer, before which 
stands, like an everlasting pillar — and will stand while this 
world lasts, and most likely in the next — the sentence, more 
than golden, " Thy Will be done." That is the first prayer, 
and perhaps it is the last. Between that and its reiteration 
in Amen are certain personal requests, very proper and very 
tender, touching man, but which all depend upon the one 
great Will. And when the passions are obedient, and our 
will subjected to His will, are not our prayers answered ? 
We Christians get it one way if we do not in another ; some- 
times we do attain certain worldly honours, and are troubled 
by what we have prayed for. Sometimes we have been weak 
enough to pray for riches and greater power, and we gain 
them when our strength is not strong enough to resist their 
temptations, and our eyes are dazzled by their brightness, 
our hearts weakened by their sweetness. That which we 
thought should have been our ornament has become our dis- 



72 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



grace; that which we fondly hoped had been our strength, has 
turned out the source of our decay. Then, again, there are 
men who despise riches, but who pray that they may move 
and influence the world, and they do so to find that the 
world, in its fashion, reacts upon and moves them. Happy is 
the man whose prayers are not answered, whose will is con- 
trolled by a higher will. He does not get his prayer, but he 
gets comfort, solace, strength. " Prayer," said one of the 
Fathers, and he but imitated Homer's saying of Jupiter, "is 
the gold chain that binds the world to the throne of God", 
and Tennyson did well to imitate that noble saying in these 
nobler lines : — 

* ' More things are wrought by prayer 
Than this world dreams of. Wherefore let thy voice 
Rise like a fountain for me night and day ; 
For what are men better than sheep or goats, 
If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer, 
Both for themselves and those who call them friend ? 
For so the whole round world is every way 
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God." 



CERTAINTY OF DEATH. 



F it be certain that we must die, this should teach 
us frequently to think of death, to keep it always 
in our eye and view : for, why should we cast off 
the thoughts of that which will certainly come, 
especially when it is so necessary to the good government of 
our lives to remember that we must die ? If we must die, I 
think it concerns us to take care that we may die happily, and 
that depends upon our living well ; and nothing has such a 
powerful influence upon the good government of our lives, as 
the thoughts of death. I have already shewed you, what 
wisdom death will teach us : but no man will learn this, who 
does not consider, what it is to die ; and no man will practise 
it, who does not often remember, that he must die ; but he 
that lives under a constant sense of death, has a perpetual 
antidote against the follies and vanities of this world, and a 
perpetual spur to virtue. 

When such a man finds his desires after this world en- 
larged beyond, not only the wants, but the conveniences of 
nature, Thou fool, says he to himself, What is the meaning 
of all this ? What kindles this insatiable thirst of riches ? 
Why must there be no end of adding house to house and field 
to field? Is this world thy home, is this thy abiding city? 




74 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



Dost thou hope to take up an eternal rest here ? Vain man ! 
thou must shortly remove thy dwelling, and then whose shall 
all these things be ? Death will shortly close thy eyes, and 
then thou shalt not so much as see the god thou worshippest? 
the earth shall shortly cover thee, and then thou shalt have 
thy mouth and belly full of clay and dust. Such thoughts as 
these will cool our desires to this present world ; will make us 
contented when we have enough, and very charitable and 
liberal of what we can spare ; for what should we do with 
more in this world than would carry us through it ? What 
better and wiser use can we make of such riches as we 
cannot carry with us into the other world, than to return them 
thither beforehand in acts of piety and charity, that we may 
receive the rewards and recompense of them in a better life? 
That we may "make to ourselves friends of the mammon of 
unrighteousness, that when we fail, they may receive us into 
everlasting habitations." 

When he finds his mind begin to swell, and to increase as 
his fortune and honours do, Lord, thinks he, what a bubble 
is this ! which every breath of air can blow away ! How vain 
a thing is man in his greatest glory, who appears gay and 
beautiful like a flower in the spring, and is as soon cut down 
and withered! Though we should meet with no change in 
our fortune here, yet we shall suddenly be removed out of 
this world ; the scene of this life will change, and there is an 
end of earthly greatness. And what a contemptible mind is 
that, which is swelled with dying honours, which looks big 
indeed, as a body does which is swelled out of all proportion 
with a dropsy or tympany; but that is its disease, not a 
natural beauty. What am I better than the poorest man who 



THE CERTAINTY OF DEATH. 



75 



begs an alms, unless I be wiser and more virtuous than he ? 
Can lands and houses, great places and titles, things which 
are not ours, and which we cannot keep, make such a mighty 
difference between one man and another ? Are these the 
riches, are these the beauties and glories of a spirit ? Are we 
not all made of the same mould? Is not God the Father of 
us all ? Must we not all die alike, and lie down in the dust 
together ? And can the different parts we act in this world, 
which are not so long as the scene of a play, compared to an 
eternal duration, make such a vast difference between men ? 
This will make men humble and modest in the highest for- 
tune, as minding them, that when they are got to the top- 
round of honour, if they keep from falling, yet they must be 
carried down again, and laid as low as the dust. 

Thus, when he finds the body growing upon the mind, and 
intoxicating it with the love of sensual pleasures, he remem- 
bers that his body must die, and all these pleasures must die 
with it ; that they are indeed killing pleasures, which kill a 
mortal body before its time ; that it does not become a man, 
who is but a traveller in this world, but a pilgrim and a 
stranger here, to study ease, and softness, and luxury; that a 
soul which must live for ever, should seek after more lasting 
pleasures, which may survive the funeral of the body, and be 
a spring of ravishing joys when he is stripped of flesh and 
blood. These are the thoughts which the consideration of 
death will suggest to us, as I have already shewed you : and 
it is impossible for a man, who has always these thoughts at 
hand, to be much imposed on by the pageantry of this world, 
by the transient honours and pleasures of it. 

It is, indeed, I think, a very impracticable rule, which some 



7'5 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



men give, to live always as if we were to die the next moment. 
Our lives should always be as innocent, as if we were imme- 
diately to give up our accounts to God ; but it is impossible 
to have always those sensible apprehensions of death about 
us, which we have when we see it approaching. But though 
we cannot live as if we were immediately to die (which would 
put an end not only to all innocent mirth, but to all the ne- 
cessary business of the world, which I believe no dying man 
would concern himself for), yet we may and we ought to live 
as those who must certainly die, and ought to have these 
thoughts continually about us, as a guard upon our actions : 
for whatever is of such mighty consequences to us, as death 
is, if it be certain, ought always to give laws to our behaviour 
and conversation. 

If it be certain we must die, the very first thing we ought 
to do in this world, after we come to years of understanding, 
should be to prepare for death, that whenever death comes we 
may be ready for it. 

This, I confess, is not according to the way of this world ; 
for dying is usually the last thing they take care of. This is 
thought a little unseasonable, while men are young, and 
healthful, and vigorous ; but besides the uncertainty of our 
lives, and that it is possible while we delay, death may seize 
on us before we are provided for it ; and then we must be 
miserable for ever (which I shall speak to under the next 
head) ; I doubt not but to convince every considering man, 
that an early preparation for death is the very best means to 
make our lives happy in this world, while we do continue 
here. Nor shall I urge here, how a life of holiness and virtue, 
which is the best and only preparation for death, tends to 



THE CERTAINTY OF DEA7H. 



77 



make us happy in this world, delivers us from all those mis- 
chiefs which the wildness and giddiness of youth, and the more 
confirmed debaucheries of riper years expose men to ; for 
this is properly the commendation of virtue, not of an early 
preparation for death : and yet this is really a great engage- 
ment and motive to prepare betimes for death, since such a 
preparation for death will put us to no greater hardships and 
inconveniences, than the practice of such virtues as will pro- 
long our lives, preserve or increase our fortunes, give us 
honour and reputation in the world, and make us beloved 
both by God and men. But setting aside these things, there 
are two advantages of an early preparation for death, which 
contribute more to our happiness than all the world besides. 
I. That it betimes delivers us from the fears of death, and 
consequently from most other fears. 2. That it supports us 
under all the troubles and calamities of this life. 

It betimes delivers us from the fears of death ; and indeed 
it is then only a man begins to live, when he is got above the 
fears of death. Were men thoughtful and considerate, death 
would hang over them in all their mirth and jollity, like a 
fatal sword by a single hair ; it would sour all their enjoy- 
ments, and strike terror into their hearts and looks : but the 
security of most men is, that they put off the thoughts of 
death, as they do their preparation for it ; they live secure 
and free from danger, only because they will not open their 
eyes to see it. But these are such examples as no wise man 
will propose to himself, because they are not safe : and there 
are so many occasions to put these men in mind of death, 
that it is a very hard thing not to think of it; and whenever 
they do, it chills their blood and spirits, and draws a black 



73 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



and melancholy veil over all the glories of the world. How 
are such men surprised when any danger approaches ? when 
death comes within view, and shows his scythe, and only 
some few sands at the bottom of the glass ? This is a very 
frightful sight to men who are not prepared to die ; and yet 
should they give themselves liberty to think in what danger 
they live every minute, how many thousand accidents may 
cut them off, which they can neither foresee nor prevent ; 
fear, and horror, and consternation would be their constant 
entertainment, till they could think of death without fear ; 
till they were reconciled to the thoughts of dying, by great 
and certain hopes of a better life after death. 

So that no man can live happily, if he lives like a man, 
with his thoughts and reason, and consideration about him, 
but he who takes care betimes to prepare for death and an- 
other world ; till this be done, a wise man will see himself 
always in danger, and then he must always fear. But he is 
a happy man who knows and considers himself to be mortal, 
and is not afraid to die ; his pleasures and enjoyments are 
sincere and unmixed, never disturbed with a hand-writing 
upon the wall, nor with some secret qualms and misgivings 
of mind ; he is not terrified with present dangers, at least 
not amazed and distracted with them. A man who is de- 
livered from the fears of death, fears nothing else in excess 
but God ; and fear is so troublesome a passion, that nothing 
is more for the happiness of our lives, than to be delivered 
from it. 

As a consequent of this, an early preparation for death 
will support men under all the troubles and calamities of this 
life. There are so many troubles which mankind are exposed 



THE CERTAINTY OF DEATH. 



79 



to in this world, that no man must expect to escape them all ; 
nay, there are a great many troubles which are unsupportable 
to human nature, which there can be no relief for in this 
world : the hopes and expectations of a better life are, in 
most cases, the safest retreat. A man may bear his present 
sufferings with some courage, when he knows that he shall 
quickly see an end to them, that death will put an end to 
them, and place him out of their reach : for " there the wicked 
cease from troubling, and there the weary be at rest ; there 
the prisoners rest together, they hear not the voice of the 
oppressor ; the small and great are there, and the servant is 
free from his master" {Job iii, 17-19). 

So that, in many cases, the thoughts and expectations of 
death is the only thing that can support us under present 
sufferings ; but while the thoughts of death itself are terrible 
to us, this will be a poor comfort. Men who are under the 
sense of guilt, are more afraid of death than they are of 
all the evils of this world : whatever their present sufferings 
are, they are not so terrible " as lakes of fire and brimstone, 
the worm that never dieth, and the fire that never goeth out." 
So that such men, while they are under the fears and terrors 
of death, have nothing to support them under present mise- 
ries. The next world, which death puts us into the posses- 
sion of, is a very delightful prospect to good men ; there they 
see the rewards of their labours and sufferings, and of their 
faith and patience : they can suffer shame and reproach, and 
"take joyfully the spoiling of their goods ; since these light 
afflictions, which are but for a season, will work for them a 
far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." But men 
who are not prepared to die, while they are afraid of death, 



8o 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



can find no relief in the thoughts of it, and therefore want 
the greatest support that we can have in this life against the 
sufferings of it : the sooner we prepare to die, the sooner we 
are delivered from the fears of death, and then the hope of 
a better life will carry us cheerfully through this world what- 
ever storms we meet with. 

Since we must certainly die, it makes it extremely rea- 
sonable to sacrifice our lives to God whenever He calls for 
them : that is, rather to choose to die a little before our time, 
than to renounce God, or to give His worship to idols, or 
any created beings, or to corrupt the faith and religion of 
Christ. There are arguments indeed enough to encourage 
Christians to martyrdom, when God calls them to suffer for 
His sake. The love of Christ, in dying for us, is a sufficient 
reason why we should cheerfully die for Him ; and the great 
rewards of martyrdom, that glorious crown which is reserved 
for such conquerors, made the primitive Christians ambitious 
of it. It is certain there is no hurt in it : nay, that it is a 
peculiar favour to die for Christ, because those persons who 
are most dear to Him were crowned with martyrdom. But 
our present argument shows us at what an easy rate we may 
purchase so glorious a crown ; for we part with nothing for 
it : we die for God, and we must die whether we die martyrs 
or not : and what man, then, who knows he must die, and 
believes the rewards of martyrdom, can think it so terrible 
to die a martyr? No good Christian can think that he loses 
anything by the bargain to exchange this life for a better ; 
for as many years as he goes sooner out of this world, than 
he should have done by the course of nature, so many years 
he gets sooner to heaven ; and, I suppose, that is no great 



CERTAINTY OF DEATH. 



Si 



loss. It is indeed a noble expression of our love to God, and 
of our entire obedience and subjection to Him, and of a per- 
fect trust in Him, to part with our lives for His sake : but what 
can a man, who knows he must die, do less for God than this ; 
than to part with a life which he cannot keep ; than willingly 
to lay down a life for God, which would shortly be taken from 
him, whether he will or not ? 

This shows us also, what little reason we have to be afraid 
of the power of men ; the utmost they can do is to kill the 
body ; a mortal body, which will die whether they kill it or 
not ; which is no mighty argument of power, no more than it 
is to break a brittle glass ; nor any great hurt to us, no more 
than it is to die, which we are all born to, and which is no 
injury to a good man: and therefore our Saviour's counsel is 
very reasonable (Luke xii, 4, 5) : "Be not afraid of them who 
kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do ; 
but I will forewarn you whom you shall fear; fear him, which, 
after he hath killed, hath power to cast into hell ; yea, I say 
unto you, fear him." 

This is very reasonable, when the fear of God and men is 
opposed to each other, which is the only case our Saviour 
supposes. No man ought foolishly to fling away his life, nor 
to provoke and affront princes, who have the power of life 
and death : this is not to die like a martyr, but like a fool, or 
a rebel. But when a prince threatens death, and God 
threatens damnation, then our Saviour's counsel takes place, 
not to fear men, but God : for indeed God's power in this is 
equal to men's at least : men can kill, for men are mortal, and 
may be killed ; and this is only for a mortal creature to die a 
little out of order ; but God can kill too ; and thus far the 

G 



33 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



case is the same. It is true, most men are of the mind, in 
such a case, rather to trust God than men, because He does 
not always punish in this world, nor execute a speedy ven- 
geance. And yet, when our Saviour takes notice, that God 
kills as well as men, it seems to intimate to us, that such 
apostates, who rather choose to provoke God than men, may 
meet with their deserts in this world : for no man is secure 
that God will not punish him in this world ; and apostates of 
all others have least reason to expect it. Those who renounce 
God for fear of men, are the fittest persons to be made 
examples of a sudden vengeance. But then when men have 
killed the body, they can do no more, they cannot kill the 
Soul ; and here the power of God and men is very unequal, 
for when he has killed, he can cast both body and soul into 
hell-fire. This is a very formidable power indeed, and we 
have reason to fear him ; but the power of men, who can only 
kill a mortal body, is not very terrible; it ought not to fright 
us into any sin, which will make us obnoxious to that more 
terrible power which can destroy the soul. 



ON THE GREATNESS OF GOD. 



MIGHTY Lord and God ! sovereign master of 
the universe, how can man move upon this earth 
without finding everywhere traces of thy pre- 
sence, and abundant cause for admiring the 
greatness and magnificence of thy holy name? If savage 
nations could efface the idea of your majesty, that you had 
implanted in their minds, the whole creation bears its impress 
so plainly and ineffaceably, that they would be inexcusable 
for failing to recognise God in His works. 

The impious man does well to boast that he does not know 
you, and that he finds within him no notion of your infinite 
essence ; and why ? he seeks you, most holy God, in his de- 
praved heart and passions rather than his reason. If he but 
glances around him, he will find you everywhere ; all the 
earth will announce to him the presence of a God ; he will 
see traces of your greatness, your power, and your wisdom 
imprinted upon all living creatures, and his corrupt heart 
alone will refuse to recognise the Author of his being. 

Man, become altogether sensual, can no longer admire any 
beauties but those which strike his senses ; but if he would 
quiet those carnal thoughts which confuse his reason, — if he 
knew how to raise himself above himself, and all objects of 




84 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



sense, — how soon would he find, O God ! that all that is 
greatest and most magnificent in the world is but an imper- 
fect likeness — a faint shadow of the greatness and glory 
which surround you. 

The heavens themselves, whose height and magnificence 
we so admire, disappear like an atom under the eyes of your 
immensity. Those grand and infinitely lofty globes above 
us, are farther off the feet of your adorable throne than they 
are from this earth. All things make known your greatness, 
and none of your works can impress us lightly or feebly. 
Raise, my soul, then, O God ! above all visible things. Let 
me see you alone amongst all the objects that you have 
created. Let me value them only in connexion with their 
destination and use. They are made to show to man, through- 
out all time, the power of Him who created them, to bring 
worshippers to His feet, and not to draw love and homage 
to themselves. 

And what need have we, O God ! for vain researches, and 
troublesome speculations to know what you are. I have 
only to raise my eyes on high, I see the vast expanse of sky, 
the work of your hands, those great bodies of light which 
roll so regularly and majestically over our heads, and com- 
pared with which the earth is but an imperceptible atom. 
What magnificence, great God ! Who said to the sun, 
" Come out of nothing, and preside over the day"; and to 
the moon, " Appear ! and be the torch of the night" ? Who 
gave being and name to that multitude of stars which deco- 
rate the firmament with so great splendour, and which are 
so many immense suns, each one attached to a new world, 
whose light it gives ? Who is the workman whose all-power- 



THE GREA TNESS OF GOD. 



35 



ful hand has created these marvels, in the contemplation of 
which all the pride of dazzled reason is lost and confounded ? 
Ah! who but the sovereign Creator of the universe could 
have done such wondrous things? Could they have pro- 
ceeded of themselves from the womb of chance and chaos ? 
And shall the ungodly man attribute to that which is not an 
almighty power, that he dares to refuse to Him who essentially 
is, and by whom all things were made ? 

As for me, O God ! overwhelmed by the sight of so much 
glory and magnificence, I cry, "Is it possible that so great 
and powerful a God is willing to condescend to think of man, 
and to make him the object of his care ?" 

That I am nothing but dust and ashes before you, is a 
small thing, great God ! the prevarications of my unfaithful 
heart, and the stains with which my unworthy clay is soiled, 
are continually before your eyes. Yet, notwithstanding this, 
a worm of rebellious earth, such as I am, has attracted your 
observation • and it has not seemed to you unworthy of your 
glory to remember him, and visit him in your great mercy. 
But I am no longer surprised, O my God ! when I remember 
the original state of glory and innocence in which you created 
man. You had impressed upon him the glorious image of 
your divinity : you had breathed into his nostrils the breath 
of life, a spiritual and immortal soul, capable of knowing 
and loving you : you had adorned him with the bright gifts 
of science, holiness, and justice. He alone, of all visible 
creatures, had the privilege of raising himself to you,— of 
conversing with his Lord,— of thanking Him, and holding 
familiar communion with Him. 

The angels themselves, pure and sublime as they were, 



So 



THE SILENT HOUR, 



were scarcely superior to him ; and he was above them inas- 
much as you had shared with him the dominion of all creatures. 
You had made him master and lord of all the rest of created 
beings. You had submitted to his empire the animals that 
walk the earth, the birds that fly in the air, and the fish 
whose path is in the depths of the waters of the sea. With 
how much honour and glory, great God ! had you clothed 
this man when he came from your hands ; you had crowned 
him in creating him, and put the perfecting touch to all your 
other works, of which he was the last and best. 

But man could not long enjoy your divine benefits. He 
soon succumbed beneath the weight of glory and happiness, 
which you had placed upon him. He became the slave of 
the creatures over which he formerly had the mastery. Death 
and sin usurped the place of innocence and immortality in 
him ; and in that fearful state into which he had fallen, your 
mercy, O God ! prepared for him a refuge more glorious than 
all the benefits of which he had been deprived. 

Your Eternal Word came down from the bosom of your 
glory to unite himself to our nature. He took upon himself 
the crimes and infirmities of that nature, to become their ex- 
piation and victim. Human nature, with him, rose to the 
height of your immense majesty, above all celestial prin- 
cipalities and powers. Your adorable Son made all men 
enter into the rights of His eternal Sonship. We all received 
the glorious title of His brothers, and He was our elder 
brother. You were our God, and you were willing to become 
our Father. We were your work, and we became your 
children. Great God ! sovereign Master of the universe ! it 
was not in creating us out of nothing that your power, and 



THE GREATNESS OF GOD. 87 



the greatness of your name, has appeared most admirable 
among men, but in causing your own and only Son, the 
splendour of your glory, to come down to earth, clothed with 
the lowliness and infirmities of our nature ; and in revealing 
to us the great mystery of religion that you had prepared 
before the commencement of the world, and which shall be 
a consolation and wonder to all ages to come. Your name, 
great God ! was formerly that terrible name that the lips of 
man dared not pronounce ; but since you have become our 
Father, that is, the common Father of all the brothers of Jesus 
Christ, it is no longer an awful name, but a name of tender- 
ness, that filial love gives us a right to repeat, and a name 
that we place with confidence at the head of all the supplica- 
tions wilich rise towards you from all parts of the world. 
O Lord, our sovereign Master ! how admirable is Thy name 
in all the earth. Domine, Dominus noster, quam admirabile 
est nomen tuunt in universa terra / 

How contemptible are those men, oh my God ! who boast 
of their superior wit and wisdom, and yet cannot see your 
glory, your greatness, and your wisdom in the magnificent 
structure of the heavens, and the stars suspended over our 
heads ! They are struck with the glory of princes and con- 
querors, who subdue peoples, and found empires, and yet do 
not feel the almightiness of that hand which alone was able 
to lay the foundations of the world. They admire the in- 
dustry and excellence of a workman who has raised superb 
palaces, that the wind will deface and destroy, and they pay 
homage to chance for the magnificence of the sky, but they 
will not behold you in the constant and regular harmony of 
that immense and superb work that the revolution of time 



83 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



and years has always respected, and will leave perfect to the 
end. Is not the daily sight of these works of your hands a 
sufficient manifestation of them ? Men of all ages and all 
nations, taught by nature alone, have recognised your divinity 
and power therein ; the godless man, however, prefers to give 
the lie to the whole human race, to tax the universe with un- 
due credulity, and to consider his first pure lights, born with 
him, as childish prejudices — all this will he choose rather than 
depart from a monstrous and incomprehensible opinion, in 
which his crimes alone, those children of darkness, have 
forced his reason to acquiesce, and which his crimes alone 
have been able to render probable. 

If the Lord had only shown the magnificent spectacle of 
the stars and the heavens to man once, the unbeliever might 
suspect an illusion ; he might, perhaps, persuade himself that 
they were mere freaks of nature, mere chance, of the order of 
those passing phenomena, which owe their birth to an acci- 
dental combination of matter, and which, formed by them- 
selves and unaided by any intelligent being, do not necessitate 
a search into the reasons and motives of their formation and 
use. But this spectacle has been ours, O God! from the 
foundation of the ages, the succession of day and night has 
never been interrupted, and has ever had an equal and a 
majestic course since it was established for the adornment of 
the world, and the use of mankind. The first day that the 
world saw, spread abroad your greatness by the magnificence 
of that immense body of light which then began to preside 
over us, and by its splendour it transmitted to all future days 
that mute but striking language which announces to mankind 
the power of your name and glory. The stars which ruled 



THE GREA TNESS OF GOD. 



S 9 



over the first night have re-appeared and presided over all 
others, and ever carry with them, by the unfailing regularity 
of their movements, the knowledge of the wisdom and 
majesty of the sovereign worker who called them forth from 
nothing. 

Yes, Lord, the rudest and most barbarous nations under- 
stand the language of the heavens, whose magnificence pub- 
lishes your glory. You have set them over our heads like 
celestial heralds, which unceasingly proclaim to the whole 
universe the greatness of the immortal King of ages ; their 
majestic silence speaks the language of all men and all 
nations, with a voice, understood wherever man is to be found 
upon the earth ; the unbeliever alone shuts his ears to it, and 
loves better to listen to the impure croaking of his passions, 
which blaspheme in secret the sovereignty of your being, than 
to the voice of those works of your hands which have pro- 
claimed your greatness from the foundation of the world. 

If we traverse the earth to its remotest bounds and its 
farthest deserts, even there the magnificence of the skies an- 
nounces your glory, as well as in the most populous and best 
known regions. No place in the universe, however hidden it 
may be from men, can withdraw itself from the splendour of 
your power, which glows above our heads in those globes of 
light which adorn the firmament. There, great God, is the 
first book that you showed to men to teach them what you 
were— there the children of Adam studied the first display of 
your infinite perfections ; it was at the sight of these glorious 
objects that, struck with admiration and respectful fear, they 
prostrated themselves in adoration of the all-powerful Creator 
of all. They did not want prophets to tell them what they 



go THE SILENT HOUR. 

owed to your supreme majesty; the admirable structure of the 
heavens and earth taught them enough. They left their pure 
and simple religion to their children, but this charge became 
corrupted as it passed through their hands : forced to admire 
the beauty and splendour of your works, they took them for 
yourself ; the stars, which shone but to announce your glory 
to mankind, became their God. Their foolish minds offered 
homage to the sun, and moon, and all the starry host of 
heaven which could neither hear nor receive it ; they no 
longer recognised you, great God, — you who had only placed 
those shining masses above us to be perpetual signs and 
witnesses of your power, and to lead men by these visible 
objects to the knowledge and worship of your supreme and 
invisible perfections. Such was the birth of an impious and 
superstitious worship which infected the whole universe ; the 
beauty of your works made men forget what they owed to their 
author. It is always your very gifts, great God, spread abroad 
throughout nature, which keep you far from us ; we fix our 
heart upon them, and refuse it to Him whose beneficent hand 
showers His benefits upon us. Our works, and our benefits, 
our possessions, our bodily and spiritual talents are our Gods, 
it is to them alone that we confine all our homage. They 
were only intended to raise our hearts to you by continual 
feelings of love and gratitude — and the sole use we make of 
them is to put them in your place, oh ! my God, and employ 
them against you. 

The great lesson, O God ! that the heavens, the sun 
especially, should give to man is by its regularity in the 
course which you have marked out for it. Faithful in follow- 
ing the way that you have traced out for it from the com- 



THE GREATNESS OF GOD, 91 

mencement, this beautiful planet has never departed from it; 
its splendour, in which you appear to have principally mani- 
fested your glory and your power, formerly attracted impious 
and foolish homage ; men adored that superb tent where it 
seems that you have established your dwelling and concealed 
your majesty ; and they did not understand that in obeying 
your orders by the constant uniformity of its course, it cried 
aloud to men that their true greatness consists in fulfilling 
their destiny, and in never swerving from the way that you 
intended them to go when you took them out of nothing. All 
lower creatures obey you, great God ; it is in the heart of man 
alone that your eternal orders meet with opposition and re- 
bellion. The sun, like a radiant bridegroom leaving his 
nuptial chamber, rises and regularly traverses all this vast 
universe; he distributes his light and heat and begins his 
majestic course daily anew, while inconstant man, not two 
moments alike, has no fixed and settled route ; he incessantly 
turns aside in his paths ; his days are marked by changes 
and inequalities. His course resembles that of an idiot who 
comes and goes, without knowing whither his footsteps tend; 
he is fatigued, and wearied, and yet is never quiet. His 
very inconstancy is a burden to him, he cannot settle that 
even ; it becomes a weight which overwhelms him, and from 
the burden of which he cannot escape ; it is the cause of all 
his crimes, it occasions all his misfortunes, and finally, be- 
comes his most cruel punishment. 



OUR DAILY BREAD. 



HIS is a very good prayer, if a body should say 
no more at one time but that : for as we see 
our need, so we shall pray. When we see God's 
name to be dishonoured, blasphemed, and ill 
spoken of, then a man, a faithful man, should say, " Our 
Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name." When 
we see the devil reign, and all the world follow his kingdom, 
then we may say, " Our Father, which art in heaven, thy 
kingdom come." When we see that the world followeth her 
own desires and lusts, and not God's will and his command- 
ments, and it grieveth us to see this, we be sorry for it ; we 
shall make our moan unto God for it, saying, " Our Father, 
which art in heaven, Fiat voluntas tua, Thy will be done." 
When we lack necessaries for the maintenance of this life, 
everything is dear, then we may say, " Our Father, which 
art in heaven, give us this day our daily bread." Therefore, 
as we see cause, so we should pray. And it is better to say 
one of these short prayers with a good faith, than the whole 
psalter without faith. 

By this now that I have said, you may perceive that the 
common opinion and estimation which the people have had of 
this prayer (the Lord's prayer, I say) is far from that that it 




OUR DAILY BREAD. 93 

is indeed. For it was esteemed for nothing : for when we be 
disposed to despise a man, and call him an ignorant fool, we 
say, " He cannot say his Pater-nosterf and so we made it 
a light matter, as though every man knew it. But I tell 
you, it is a great matter ; it containeth weighty things, if it 
be weighed to the very bottom, as a learned man could do. 
But as for me, that that I have learned out of the holy scrip- 
ture and learned men's books, which expound the same, I 
will show unto you : but I intend to be short. I have been 
very long before in the other petitions, which something ex- 
pound those that follow : therefore I will not tarry so long 
in them as I have done in the other. 

"Give us this day our daily bread." Every word is to 
be considered, for all have their importance. This word 
" bread " signified! all manner of sustenance for the preserv- 
ation of this life ; all things whereby man should live are 
contained in this word " bread." You must remember what 
I said by that petition, " Hallowed be thy name." There we 
pray unto God that he will give us grace to live so that we 
may, with all our conversations and doings, hallow and sanc- 
tify Him, according as His word telleth us. Now forasmuch 
as the preaching of God's word is most necessary to bring 
us into this hallowing, we pray in the same petition for the 
office of preaching. For the sanctifying of the name of 
God cannot be, except the office of preaching be maintained, 
and His word be preached and known : therefore in the same 
petition, when I say, Sanctificetur, " Hallowed be thy name," 
I pray that His word may be spread abroad and known, 
through which cometh sanctifying. So likewise in this peti- 
tion, " Give us this day our daily bread," wc pray for all 



94 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



those things which be necessary and requisite to the suste- 
nance of our souls and bodies. Now the first and principal 
thing that we have need of in this life is the magistrates: 
without a magistrate we should never live well and quietly. 
Then it is necessary and most needful to pray unto God for 
them, that the people may have rest, and apply their business, 
every man in his calling ; the husbandman in tilling* and 
ploughing, the artificer in his business. For you must ever 
consider, that where war is, there be all discommodities ; 
no man can do his duty according unto his calling, as ap- 
peareth now in Germany, the Emperorf and the French kingj 
being at controversy. I warrant you, there is little rest or 
quietness. Therefore in this petition we pray unto God for 
our magistrates, that they may rule and govern this realm 
well and godly ; and keep us from invasions of alienates and 
strangers ; and to execute justice, and punish malefactors : and 
this is so requisite, that we cannot live without it. Therefore 
when we say, " Give us this day our daily bread ;" we pray 
for the king, his counsellors, and all his officers. 

But not every man that saith these words understandeth 
so much ; for it is obscurely included, so that none perceive 
it but those which earnestly and diligently consider the same. 
But St. Paul he expresseth it with more words plainly, say- 
ing, " I exhort you to make supplications and prayers for all 
men, but specially^r*? regibus et qui in sublimitate constituti 
stmt, for the kings, and for those which be aloft." Whereto ? 
Ut placidam et quiet am vitam agamies, "That we may live 
godly and quietly, in all honesty and godliness." And when 



* His tilling, 1584. f Charles V. % Henry II. 



OUR DAILY BREAD. 



95 



I pray for them, I pray for myself : for I pray for them that 
they may rule so, that I and all men may live quietly and at 
rest. And to this end we desire a quiet life, that we may the 
better serve God, hear His word, and live after it. For in 
the rebels' time, I pray you, what godliness was shewed 
amongst them ? They went so far, as it was told, that they 
defiled other men's wives : what godliness was this ? In what 
estate, think you, were those faithful subjects which at the 
same time were amongst them ? They had sorrow enough, I 
warrant you. So it appeareth, that where war is, there is 
right godliness banished and gone. Therefore to pray for a 
quiet life, that is as much as to pray for a godly life, that we 
may serve God in our calling, and get our livings uprightly. 
So it appeareth, that praying for magistrates is as much as 
to pray for ourselves. 

They that be children, and live under the rule of their 
parents, or have tutors, they pray in this petition for their 
parents and tutors ; for they be necessary for their bringing 
up : and God will accept their prayer, as well as theirs which 
be of age. For God hath no respect of persons ; he is as 
ready to hear the youngest as the oldest : therefore let them 
be brought up in godliness, let them know God. Let parents 
and tutors do their duties to bring them up so, that as soon 
as their age serveth, they may taste and savour God; let 
them fear God in the beginning, and so they shall do also 
when they be old. Because I speak here of orphans, I shall 
exhort you to be pitiful unto them ; for it is a thing that 
pleaseth God, as St. James witnesseth, saying, Religio ftura, 
etc., " Pure religion." 

It is a common speech amongst the people, and much 



0 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



used, that they say, "All religious houses are pulled down 
which is a very peevish saying, and not true, for they are not 
pulled down. That man and that woman that live together 
godly and quietly, doing the works of their vocation, and fear 
God, hear His word and keep it; that same is a religious 
house, that is, that house that pleaseth God. For religion, 
pure religion, I say, standeth not in wearing of a monk's 
cowl, but in righteousness, justice, and well-doing, and, as 
St. James saith, in visiting the orphans, and widows that lack 
their husbands, orphans that lack their parents ; to help them 
when they be poor, to speak for them when they be oppressed: 
herein standeth true religion, God's religion, I say : the other 
which was used was an unreligious life, yea, rather an hypo- 
crisy. There is a text in scripture, I never read it but I re- 
member these religious houses : Estque recta homiiii vza, 
cujus tamen fostremum iter est ad mortem; "There is a way, 
which seemeth to men to be good, whose end is eternal per- 
dition." When the end is naught, all is naught. So were 
these monks' houses, these religious houses. There were 
many people, specially widows, which would give over house- 
keeping, and go to such houses, when they might have done 
much good in maintaining of servants, and relieving of poor 
people ; but they went their ways. What a madness was 
that ! Again, how much cause we have to thank God, that 
we know what is true religion ; that God hath revealed unto 
us the deceitfulness of these monks, which had a goodly shew 
before the world of great holiness, but they were naught 
within. Therefore scripture saith, Quod excelsum est homi- 
nibus abominabile est coram Deo; "That which is highly 
esteemed before men is abominable before God." Therefore 



OUR DAILY BREAD. 97 

that man and woman that live in the fear of God are much 
better than their houses were. 

I read once a story of a holy man,* (some say it was St. 
Anthony,) which had been a long season in the wilderness, 
neither eating nor drinking anything but bread and water : 
at the length he thought himself so holy that there should be 
nobody like unto him. Therefore he desired of God to know 
who should be his fellow in heaven. God made him answer, 
and commanded him to go to Alexandria : there he should 
find a cobbler which should be his fellow in heaven. Now 
he went thither and sought him out, and fell in acquaintance 
with him, and tarried with him three or four days to see his 
conversation. In the morning his wife and he prayed to- 
gether ; then they went to their business, he in his shop, and 
she about her housewifery. At dinner-time they had bread 
and cheese, wherewith they were well content, and took it 
thankfully. Their children were well taught to fear God, 
and to say their Pater-noster, and the Creed, and the Ten 
Commandments ; and so he spent his time in doing his duty 
truly. I warrant you, he did not so many false stitches as 
cobblers do now-a-days. St. Anthony perceiving that, came 
to knowledge of himself, and laid away all pride and pre- 
sumption. By this ensample you may learn that honest 
conversation and godly living is much regarded before God, 
insomuch that this poor cobbler, doing his duty diligently, 
was made St. Anthony's fellow. So it appeareth that we be 
not destitute of religious houses : those which apply their 
business uprightly and hear God's word, they shall be St. 



* Vita? Patrwn, pp. 519, 671. Antverp., 16 15 

H 



9-8 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



Anthony's fellows : that is to say, they shall be numbered 
amongst the children of God. 

Further, in this petition the man and wife pray one for 
the other. For one is a help unto the other, and so neces- 
sary the one to the other : therefore they pray one for the 
other, that God will spare them their lives, to live together 
quietly and godly, according to his ordinance and institution; 
and this is good and needful. As for such as be not married, 
you shall know that I do not so much praise marriage, that 
I should think that single life is naught ; as I have heard 
some which will scant allow single life. They think in their 
hearts that all those which be not married be naught : there- 
fore they have a common saying amongst them, " What P 
say they, " they be made of such metal as we be made of ;" 
thinking them to be naught in their living, which suspicions 
are damnable afore God : for we know not what gifts God 
hath given unto them; therefore we cannot with good con- 
science condemn them or judge them. True it is, " marriage 
is good and honourable amongst all men," as St. Paul witness- 
eth ; Et adulteros et fornicatores judicabit Dontinus, " And 
the Lord shall and will judge," that is, condemn, " adulterers 
and whoremongers," but not those which live in single life. 
When thou livest in lechery, or art a whore, or whoremonger, 
then thou shalt be damned ; but when thou livest godly and 
honestly in single life, it is well and allowable afore God ; 
yea, and better than marriage : for St. Paul saith, Volo vos 
absque sollicitudine esse, " I will have you to be without care- 
fulness," that is, unmarried ; and showeth the commodities, 
saying, " they that be unmarried set their minds upon God, 
how to please Him, and to live after his commandments. But 



OUR DAILY BREAD. 



99 



as for the other, the man is careful how to please his wife ; 
and again, the woman how to please her husband." And this 
is St. Paul's saying of the one as well as of the other. There- 
fore I will wish you not to condemn single life, but take one 
with the other; like as St. Paul teacheth us, not so extol the 
one, that we should condemn the other. For St. Paul praiseth 
as well single life, as marriage ; yea, and more too. For 
those that be single have more liberties to pray and to serve 
God than the other : for they that be married have much 
trouble and afflictions in their bodies. This I speak, because 
I hear that some there be which condemn single life. I would 
have them to know that matrimony is good, godly, and allow- 
able unto all men : yet, for all that, the single life ought not 
to be despised or condemned, seeing that scripture alloweth 
it ; yea, and he amrmeth that it is better than matrimony, 
if it be clean without sin and offence. 

Further, we pray here in this petition for good servants, 
that God will send unto us good, faithful, and trusty servants, 
for they are necessary for this bodily life, that our business 
may be done : and those which live in single life have more 
need of good trusty servants than those which are married. 
Those which are married can better oversee their servants. 
For when the man is from home, at the least the wife over- 
seeth them, and keepeth them in good order. For I tell you, 
servants must be overseen and looked to : if they be not 
overseen, what be they ! It is a great gift of God to have 
a good servant : for the most part of servants are but eye- 
servants ; when their master is gone, they leave off from their 
labour and play the sluggards; but such servants do contrary 
to God's commandment, and shall be damned in hell for their 



L OF C a 



100 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



slothfulness, except they repent. Therefore, I say, those that 
be unmarried have more need of good servants than those 
which be married ; for one of them at the least may always 
oversee the family. For, as I told you before, the most part 
of servants be eye-servants ; they be nothing when they be 
not overseen. 

There was once a fellow asked a philosopher a question, 
saying, Quomodo saginatur eqitus? "How is a horse made 
fat ?" The philosopher made answer, saying, Oculo domini, 
" With his master's eye." Not meaning that the horse should 
be fed with his master's eye, but that the master should over- 
see the horse, and take heed to the horse-keeper, that the 
horse might be well fed. For when a man rideth by the way, 
and cometh to his inn, and giveth unto the hostler his horse 
to walk, and so he himself sitteth at the table and maketh 
good cheer, and forgetteth his horse, the hostler cometh and 
saith, " Sir, how much bread shall I give unto your horse ?" 
He saith, " Give him two-penny worth." I warrant you, this 
horse shall never be fat. Therefore a man should not say to 
the hostler, " Go, give him;" but he should see himself that 
the horse have it. In like manner, those that have servants 
must not only command them what they shall do, but they 
must see that it be done : they must be present, or else it 
shall never be done. One other man asked that same philo- 
sopher this question, saying, " What dung is it that maketh 
a man's land most fruitful in bringing forth much corn?" 
" Marry," said he, Vestigia domini, " The owner's footsteps." 
Not meaning that the master should come and walk up and 
down, and tread the ground ; but he would have him to come 
and oversee the servants tilling of the ground, commanding 



OUR DAILY BREAD. 



101 



them to do k diligently, and so to look himself upon their 
work : this shall be the best dung, saith the philosopher. 
Therefore never trust servants, except you may be assured of 
their diligence; for I tell you truly, I can come nowhere but 
I hear masters complaining of their servants. I think verily, 
they fear not God, they consider not their duties. Well, I 
will burden them with this one text of scripture, and then go 
forward in my matters. The prophet Jeremy saith, Male- 
dictus qui facit opus Domini negligenter. Another transla- 
tor hath fraudulenter, but it is one in effect : " Cursed be he 
that doth the work of the Lord negligently or fraudulently," 
take which you will. It is no light matter, that God pro- 
nounceth them to be cursed. But what is " cursed ?" What is 
it ? " Cursed" is as much to say as, " It shall not go well with 
them ; they shall have no luck ; my face shall be against them." 
Is not this a great thing ? Truly, consider it as you list, but 
it is no light matter to be cursed of God, which ruleth heaven 
and earth. And though the prophet speaketh these words 
of warriors going to war, yet it may be spoken of all servants, 
yea, of all estates, but specially of servants ; for St. Paul saith, 
Domino Christo servitis: "You servants," saith he, " you serve 
the Lord Christ, it is his work." Then, when it is the Lord's 
work, take heed how you do it ; for cursed is he that doth it 
negligently. But where is such a servant as Jacob was to 
Laban ? How painful was he ! How careful for his master's 
profit ! Insomuch that when somewhat perished, he restored 
it again of his own. And where is such a servant as Eleazer 
was to Abraham his master? What a journey had he ! How 
careful he was, -and when he came to his journey's end, he 
would neither eat nor drink afore he had done his master's 



102 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



message ; so that all his mind was given only to serve his 
master, and to do according to his commandments : insomuch 
that he would neither eat nor drink till he had done according 
to his master's will ! Much like to our Saviour's saying, 
Cibus meus est ut faciam voluntatem ejus, qui misit me j 
" This is my meat, to do the will of him that sent me." I 
pray you servants, mark this Eleazer well ; consider all the 
'circumstances of his diligent and faithful service, and follow 
it : else if you follow it not, you read it to your own con- 
demnation. Likewise consider the true service which Joseph, 
that young man, did unto his master Potiphar, lieutenant of 
the Tower ; how faithfully he served, without any guile or 
fraud : therefore God promoted him so that he was made 
afterwards the ruler over all Egypt Likewise consider how 
faithful Daniel was in serving king Darius. Alack, that you 
servants be stubborn-hearted, and will not consider this ! You 
will not remember that your service is the work of the Lord ; 
you will not consider that the curse of God hangeth upon 
your heads for your slothfulness and negligence. Take heed, 
therefore, and look to your duties. 

Now, further : whosoever prayeth this prayer with a 
good faithful heart, as he ought to do, he prayeth for all 
ploughmen and husbandmen, that God will prosper and in- 
crease their labour ; for except He give the increase, all their 
labour and travail is lost. Therefore it is needful to pray for 
them, that God may send his benediction by their labour ; 
for without corn and such manner of sustenance, we cannot 
live. And in that prayer we include all artificers ; for by 
their labours God giveth us many commodities which we 
could not lack. We pray also for wholesome air. Item, we 



OUR DAILY BREAD. 103 

pray for seasonable weather. When we have too much rain, 
we pray for fair weather : again, when we lack rain, we pray 
that God will send rain. And in that prayer we pray for our 
cattle, that God will preserve them to our use from all dis- 
eases : for without cattle we cannot live, we cannot till the 
ground, nor have meat : therefore we include them in our 
prayer too. 

So you see that this prayer containeth innumerable things. 
For we pray for all such things as be expedient and needful 
for the preservation of this life. And not alone this, but we 
have here good doctrine and admonitions besides. For here 
we be admonished of the liberality of God our heavenly 
Father, which He showeth daily over us. For our Saviour, 
knowing the liberality of God our heavenly Father, com- 
mandeth us to pray. If He would not give us the things 
we ask, Christ would not have commanded us to pray. If 
He had borne an ill will against us, Christ would not have 
sent us to Him. But our Saviour, knowing His liberal heart 
towards us, commandeth us to pray, and desire all things at 
His hands. 

And here we be admonished of our estate and condition, 
what we be, namely, beggars. For we ask bread : of whom ? 
Marry, of God. What are we then ? Marry, beggars : the 
greatest lords and ladies in England are but beggars afore 
God. Seeing, then, that we all are but beggars, why should 
we then disdain and despise poor men? Let us therefore 
consider that we be but beggars ; let us put down our sto- 
machs. For if we consider the matter well, we are like as 
they be afore God : for St. Paul saith, Quid habes quod non 
accepistif "What hast thou that thou hast not received of 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



God ?" Thou art but a beggar, whatsoever thou art : and 
though there be some very rich, and have great abundance, 
of whom have they it ? Of God. What saith he, that rich 
man? He saith, "Our Father, which art in heaven, give us 
this day our daily bread*': then he is a beggar afore God 
as well as the poorest man. Further, how continueth the 
rich man in his riches ? Who made him rich ? Marry, God. 
For it is written, Benedictio Dei facit divitem; "The bless- 
ing of God maketh rich." Except God bless, it standeth to 
no effect : for it is written, Comedent et non saturabuntur j 
" They shall eat, but yet never be satisfied." Eat as much 
as you will, except C-od feed you, you shall never be full. 
So likewise, as rich as a man is, yet he cannot augment his 
riches, nor keep that he hath, except God be with him, ex- 
cept He bless him. Therefore let us not be proud, for we 
be beggars, the best of us. 

Note here, that our Saviour biddeth us to say, "us." This 
"us" lappeth in all other men with my prayer: for every one 
of us prayeth for another. When I say, " Give us this day 
our daily bread," I pray not for myself only, if I ask as he 
biddeth me ; but I pray for all others. Wherefore say I not, 
" Our Father, give me this day my daily bread" ? For because 
God is not my God alone, He is a common God. And here 
we be admonished to be friendly, loving, and charitable one 
to another : for what God giveth, I cannot say, "This is my 
own;" but I must say, "This is ours." For the rich man can- 
not say, "This is mine own alone, God hath given it unto me 
for my own use." Nor yet hath the poor man any title unto 
it, to take it away from him. No, the poor man may not do 
so ; for when he doth so, he is a thief afore God and man. 



OUR DAILY BREAD. 105 

But yet the poor man hath title to the rich man's goods ; so 
that the rich man ought to let the poor man have part of his 
riches to help and to comfort him withal. Therefore when 
God sendeth unto me much, it is not mine, but ours ; it is 
not given unto me alone, but I must help my poor neighbours 
withal. 

But here I must ask you rich men a question. How 
chanceth it you have your riches ? "We have them of God," 
you will say. But by what means have you them? "By 
prayer," you will say. "We pray for them unto God, and He 
giveth us the same." Very well. But I pray you tell me, 
what do other men which are not rich ? Pray they not as 
well as you do ? "Yes," you must say ; for you cannot deny 
it. Then it appeareth that you have your riches not through 
your own prayers only, but other men help you to pray for 
them : for they say as well, " Our Father, give us this day our 
daily bread," as you do; and peradventure they be better 
than you be, and God heareth their prayer sooner than yours. 
And so it appeareth most manifestly, that you obtain your 
riches of God, not only through your own prayer, but through 
other men's too : other men help you to get them at God's 
hand. Then it followeth, that seeing you get not your riches 
alone through your own prayer, but through the poor man's 
prayer, it is meet that the poor man should have part of 
them ; and you ought to relieve his necessity and poverty. 
But what meaneth God by this inequality, that he giveth to 
some an hundred pound ; unto this man five thousand pound ; 
unto this man in a manner nothing at all ? What meaneth 
He by this inequality? Here He meaneth, that the rich 
ought to distribute his riches abroad amongst the poor : for 



ic6 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



the rich man is but God's officer, God's treasurer : he ought 
to distribute them according unto his Lord God's command- 
ment. If every man were rich, then no man would do any- 
thing: therefore God maketh some rich and some poor. 
Again : that the rich may have where to exercise his charity, 
God made some rich and some poor : the poor He sendeth 
unto the rich to desire of him in God's name help and aid. 
Therefore, you rich men, when there cometh a poor man unto 
you, desiring your help, think none otherwise but that God 
hath sent him unto you ; and remember that thy riches be 
not thy own, but thou art but a steward over them. If thou 
wilt not do it, then cometh in St. John, which saith : "He 
that hath the substance of this world, and seeth his brother 
lack, and helpeth him not, how remaineth the love of God in 
him ?" He speaketh not of them that have it not, but of them 
that have it : that same man loveth not God if he help not 
his neighbour, having wherewith to do it. This is a sore and 
hard word. There be many which say with their mouth, they 
love God : and if a man should ask here this multitude, 
whether they love God or no? they would say, "Yes, God 
forbid else !" But if ycu consider their unmercifulness unto 
the poor, you shall see, as St. John said, "the love of God 
not within them." Therefore, you rich men, ever consider of 
whom you have your riches : be it a thousand pound, yet you 
fetch it out of this petition. For this petition, " Give us this 
day our daily bread," is God's store-house, God's treasure- 
house : here lieth all his provision, and here you fetch it. But 
ever have in remembrance that this is a common prayer : a 
poor man prayeth as well as thou, and peradventure God 
sendeth this riches unto thee for another man's prayer's sake, 



OUR DAILY BREAD. 



107 



which prayeth for thee, whose prayer is more effectual than 
thine own. And, therefore, you ought to be thankful unto 
other men, which pray for you unto God, and help you to ob- 
tain your riches. Again, this petition is a remedy against 
this wicked carefulness of men, when they seek how to live, 
and how to get their livings, in such wise, like as if there were 
no God at all. And then there be some which will not labour 
as God hath appointed unto them ; but rather give them to 
falsehood ; to sell false ware, and deceive their neighbours ; 
or to steal other men's sheep or conies : those fellows are far 
wide. Let them come to God's treasure-house, that is to say, 
let them come to God and call upon Him with a good faith, 
saying, "Our Father, give us this day our daily bread;" truly 
God will hear them. For this is the only remedy that we 
shall have here on earth, to come to His treasure-house, and 
fetch there such things as we lack. Consider this word 
" daily." God promiseth us to feed us daily. If ye believe 
this, why use you then falsehood and deceit? Therefore, 
good people, leave your falsehood ; get you rather to this 
treasure-house ; then you may be sure of a living : for God 
hath determined that all that come unto Him, desiring His 
help, they shall be holpen ; God will not forget them. But 
our unbelief is so great, we will not come unto Him : we will 
rather go about to get our living with falsehood, than desire 
the same of Him. 

O what falsehood is used in England, yea, in the whole 
world ! It were no marvel if the fire from heaven fell upon 
us, like as it did upon the Sodomites, only for our falsehood's 
sake ! I will tell you of a false practice that was practised in 
my country where I dwell. But I will not tell it you to teach 



ioS 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



you to do the same, but rather to abhor it : for those which 
use such deceitfulness shall be damned world without end, 
except they repent. I have known some that had a barren 
cow: they would fain have had a great deal of money for her; 
therefore they go and take a calf of another cow, and put it 
to this barren cow, and so come to the market, pretending 
that this cow hath brought that calf; and so they sell their 
barren cow six or eight shillings dearer than they should have 
done else. The man which bought the cow cometh home : 
peradventure he hath a many of children, and hath no more 
cattle but this cow, and thinketh he shall have some milk for 
his children ; but when all things cometh to pass, this is a 
barren cow, and so this poor man is deceived. The other 
fellow, which sold the cow, thinketh himself a jolly fellow and 
a wise merchant ; and he is called one that can make shift for 
himself. But I tell thee, whosoever thou art, do so if thou 
lust, thou shalt do it of this price, — thou shalt go to the devil, 
and there be hanged on the fiery gallows world without end : 
and thou art as very a thief as when thou takest a man's purse 
from him going by the way, and thou sinnest as well against 
this commandment, Non fades furtum, "Thou shalt do no 
theft." But these fellows commonly, which use such deceit- 
fulness and guiles, can speak so finely, that a man would 
think butter should scant melt in their mouths. 

I tell you one other falsehood. I know that some husband- 
men go to the market with a quarter of corn : now they would 
fain sell dear the worst as well as the best ; therefore they use 
this policy : they go and put a strike* of fine malt or corn in 



A bushel. 



O UR DAIL Y BREAD, 109 

the bottom of the sack, then they put two strikes of the worst 
they had ; then a good strike aloft in the sack's mouth, and 
so they come to the market. Now there cometh a buyer, 
asking, "Sir, is this good malt?" "I warrant you," saith he, 
"there is no better in this town." And so he selleth all his 
malt or corn for the best, when there be but two strikes of the 
best in his sack. The man that buyeth it thinketh he hath 
good malt, he cometh home : when he putteth the malt out 
of the sack, the strike which was in the bottom covereth the 
ill malt which was in the midst ; and so the good man shall 
never perceive the fraud, till he cometh to the occupying of 
the corn. The other man that sold it taketh this for a policy: 
but it is theft afore God, and he is bound to make restitution 
of so much as those two strikes which were naught were sold 
too dear ; so much he ought to restore, or else he shall never 
come to heaven, if God be true in His word. 

I could tell you of one other falsehood, how they make 
wool to weigh much : but I will not tell it you. If you learn 
to do these falsehoods whereof I have told you now, then 
take the sauce with it, namely, that you shall never see the 
bliss of heaven, but be damned world without end, with the 
devil and all his angels. Now go when it please you, use 
falsehood. But I pray you, wherefore will you deceive your 
neighbour, whom you ought to love as well as your own self? 
Consider the matter, good people, what a dangerous thing it 
is to fall into the hands of the ever-living God. Leave false- 
hood : abhor it. Be true and faithful in your calling. 
Qucerite regnum Dei et justitiam ejus, et cetera omnia adji- 
cientur vobis : " Seek the kingdom of God, and the righteous- 
ness thereof, then all things necessary for you shall come unto 
you unlooked for." 



no 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



Therefore in this petition, note first God's goodness, how 
gentle He is towards us; insomuch that He would have us to 
come unto Him and take of Him all things. Then again, 
note what we be, namely, beggars, for we beg of Him; which 
admonisheth us to leave stoutness and proudness, and to be 
humble. Note what is "our"; namely, that one prayeth for 
another, and that this storehouse is common unto all men. 
Note again, what we be when we be false ; — the children of 
the devil, and enemies unto God. 

There be some men which would have this petition not to 
import or contain these bodily things, as things which be too 
vile to be desired at God's hand ; therefore they expound it 
altogether spiritually, of things pertaining unto the soul only: 
which opinion, truly, I do not greatly like. For shall I trust 
God for my soul, and shall I not trust Him for my body ? 
Therefore I take it, that all things necessary to soul and body 
are contained in this petition : and we ought to seek all things 
necessary to our bodily food only in this storehouse. 

But you should not take my sayings after such sort, as 
though you should do nothing but sit and pray; and yet you 
should have your dinner and supper made ready for you. 
No, not so : but you must labour, you must do the work of 
your vocation. Qucerite regnum Dei, " Seek the kingdom of 
heaven :" you must set these two things together, works and 
prayer. He that is true in his vocation, doing according as 
God willeth him to do, and then prayeth unto God, that man 
or woman may be assured of their living ; as sure, I say, as 
God is God. As for the wicked, indeed God of his exceeding 
mercy and liberality findeth them ; and sometimes they fare 
better than the good man doth : but for all that the wicked 



OUR DAILY BREAD. 



in 



man hath ever an ill-conscience ; he doth wrong unto God ; 
he is an usurper, he hath no right unto it. The good and 
godly man he hath right unto it ; for he cometh by it lawfully, 
by his prayer and travail. But these covetous men, think ye, 
say they this prayer with a faithful heart, " Our Father, which 
art in heaven ; Give us this day our daily bread" ? Think ye 
they say it from the bottom of their hearts? No, no; they 
do but mock God, they laugh Him to scorn when they say 
these words. For they have their bread, their silver and gold 
in their coffers, in their chests, in their bags or budgets ; 
therefore they have no savour of God : else they would show 
themselves liberal unto their poor neighbours ; they would 
open their chests and bags, and lay out and help their brethren 
in Christ. They be as yet but scorners ; they say this prayer 
like as the Turk may say it. 

Consider this word, "Give". Certainly, we must labour, 
yet we must not so magnify our labour as though we gat our 
living by it. For labour as long as thou wilt, thou shalt have 
no profit by it, except the Lord increase thy labour. There- 
fore we must thank Him for it ; He doth it ; He giveth it. 
To whom ? Laboranti et poscenti, " Unto him that laboureth 
and prayeth," That man that is so disposed shall not lack, 
as He saith, Dabit Spiritum Sanctum poscentibus ilium; 
"He will give the Holy Ghost unto them that desire the 
same." Then, we must ask ; for He giveth not to sluggards. 
Indeed, they have His benefits ; they live wealthily : but, as 
I told you afore, they have it with an ill conscience, not law- 
fully. Therefore Christ saith, Solem suum oriri sinit super 
justos et injustos; "He suffers his sun to rise upon the just 
and unjust." Also, Nemo scit an odio vel amove sit digitus ; 



112 



THE SILENT HOUR, 



"We cannot tell outwardly by these worldly things, which be 
in the favour of G-od, and which be not" ; for they be common 
unto good and bad : but the wicked have it not with a good 
conscience ; the upright, good man hath his living through 
his labour and faithful prayer. Beware that you trust not in 
your labour, as though ye got your living by it : for, as St. 
Paul saith, Qui plant at nihil est, neque qui rigat, sed qui dat 
incrementum Deus j "Neither he that planteth is aught, nor 
he that watereth, but God that giveth the increase." Except 
God give the increase, all our labour is lost. They that be 
the children of this world, as covetous persons, extortioners, 
oppressors, caterpillars, usurers, think you they come to God's 
storehouse ? No, no, they do not ; they have not the under- 
standing of it ; they cannot tell what it meaneth. For they 
look not to get their livings at God's storehouse, but rather 
they think to get it with deceit and falsehood, with oppression, 
and wrong doings. For they think that all things be lawful 
unto them ; therefore they think that though they take other 
men's goods through subtilty and crafts, it is no sin. But I 
tell you, those things which we buy, or get with our labour, or 
are given us by inheritance, or otherways, those things be 
ours by the law ; which maketh meum and tuum, mine and 
thine. Now all things gotten otherwise are not ours ; as 
those things which be gotten by crafty conveyances, by guile 
and fraud, by robbery and stealing, by extortion and oppres- 
sion, by hand-making, or howsoever you come by it beside 
the right way, it is not yours ; insomuch that you may not 
give it for God's sake, for God hateth it. 

But you will say, " What shall we do with the good 
gotten by unlawful means ?" Marry, I tell thee : make 



O UR DAIL Y BREAD. 1 1 3 

restitution ; which is the only way that pieaseth God. O Lord, 
wnat bribery, falsehood, deceiving, false getting of goods is in 
England ! And yet for all that, we hear nothing of restitution; 
which is a miserable thing. I tell you, none of them which 
have taken their neighbour's goods from him by any manner 
of falsehood, none of them, I say, shall be saved, except they 
make restitution, either in affect or effect ; in effect, when they 
be able ; in affect, when they be not able in no wise. Ezekiel 
saith, Si impius egerit panitentiam, et rapinam reddiderit ; 
"When the ungodly doth repent, and restoreth the goods 
gotten wrongfully and unlawfully." For unlawful goods ought 
to be restored again : without restitution look not for salva- 
tion. Also, this is a true sentence used of St. Augustine,* 
Non remittetur peccatum, nisi restituatur ablatumj "Rob- 
bery, falsehood, or otherwise ill-gotten goods, cannot be for- 
given of God, except it be restored again." Zaccheus, that 
good publican, that common officer, he gave a good ensample 
unto all bribers and extortioners. I would they all would fol- 
low his ensample ! He exercised not open robbery; he killed 
no man by the way ; but with crafts and subtilties he deceived 
the poor. When the poor men came to him, he bade them 
to come again another day ; and so delayed the time, till at 
the length he wearied poor men, and so gat somewhat of 
them. Such fellows are now, in our time, very good cheap ; 
but they will not learn the second lesson. They have read 
the first lesson, how Zachee was a bribe-taker ; but they will 
not read the second : they say A, but they will not say B. 
What is the second lesson? Si quern defraudavi, reddam 



Opera, torn, ii, col. 403, edit. Bened. Antverp. rjoo. 

I 



ii4 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



quadmplum ; " If I have deceived any man, I will restore 
it fourfold." But we may argue that they be not such fellows 
as Zacheus was, for we hear nothing of restitution ; they lack 
right repentance. 

It is a wonderful thing to see, that Christian people will 
live in such an estate, wherein they know themselves to be 
damned : for when they go to bed, they go in the name of the 
devil. Finally, whatsoever they do, they do it in his name, 
because they be out of the favour of God. God loveth them 
not ; therefore, I say, it is to be lamented that we hear nothing 
of restitution. St. Paul saith, Qui furabatur non amplius 
furetur j "He that stole, let him steal no more." Which 
words teach us, that he which hath stolen or deceived, and 
keepeth it, he is a strong thief so long till he restore again 
the thing taken ; and shall look for no remission of his sins 
at God's hand, till he hath restored again such goods. There 
be some which say, "Repentance or contrition will serve; 
it is enough when I am sorry for it." Those fellows cannot 
tell what repentance meaneth. Look upon Zacheus : he did 
repent, but restitution by and by followed. So let us do too: 
let us live uprightly and godly ; and when we have done amiss, 
or deceived any body, let us make restitution. And after, be- 
ware of such sins, of such deceitfulness ; but rather let us call 
upon God, and resort to his storehouse, and labour faithfully 
and truly for our livings. Whosoever is so disposed, him 
God will favour, and he shall lack nothing : as for the other 
impenitent* sluggards, they be devourers and usurpers of 
God's gifts, and therefore shall be punished, world without 
end, in everlasting fire. 



# The impenitent, 1584. 



O UR BAIL V BREAD. i t 5 

Remember this word "our:" what it meaneth I told you. 
And here I have occasion to speak of the proprieties of things : 
for I fear, if I should leave it so, some of you would report 
me wrongfully, and affirm, that all things should be common. 
I say not so. Certain it is, that God hath ordained proprietief 
of things, so that that which is mine is not thine ; and what 
thou hast I cannot take from thee. If all things were com- 
mon, there could be no theft, and so this commandment, 
Non fades furtum, " Thou shalt not steal," were in vain. 
But it is not so : the laws of the realm make meum et tuum, 
mine and thine. If I have things by those laws, then I have 
them well. But this you must not forget, that St. Paul saith, 
Sitis necessitatibus sanctorum communic antes j " Relieve the 
necessity of those which have need." Things are not so com- 
mon, that another man may take my goods from me, for this 
is theft ; but they are so common, that we ought to distribute 
them unto the poor, to help them, and to comfort them with 
it. We ought one to help another ; for this is a standing sen- 
tence : Qui habuerit substantiam hujus mundi, et viderit 
fratrem stmm necessitatem habere, et clauserit viscera sua ab 
eo, quomodo caritas Dei manet in eof a He that hath the 
substance of this world, and shall see his brother to have 
need, and shutteth up his entire affection from him, how 
dwelleth the love of God in him?" There was a certain 
manner of having things in common in the time of the 
apostles. For some good men, as Barnabas was, sold their 
lands and possessions, and brought the money unto the 
apostles : but that was done for this cause, — there was a 
great many of Christian people at that time entreated very ill, 
insomuch that they left all their goods : now, such folk came 



ii6 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



unto the apostles for aid and help; therefore those which 
were faithful men, seeing the poverty of their brethren, went 
and sold that that they had, and spent the money amongst 
such poor which were newly-made Christians. Amongst 
others which sold their goods there was one Ananias and 
Saphira his wife, two very subtile persons : they went and 
sold their goods too ; but they played a wise part : they would 
not stand in danger of the losing of all their goods ; therefore 
they agreed together, and took the one part from* the money, 
and laid it up; with the other part they came to Peter, 
affirming that to be the whole money. For they thought in 
their hearts, like as all unfaithful men do, "We cannot tell 
how long this religion shall abide ; it is good to be wise, and 
keep somewhat in store, whatsoever shall happen." Now 
Peter, knowing by the Holy Ghost their falsehood, first slew 
him with one word, and after her too : which indeed is a 
fearful ensample, whereby we should be monished to beware 
of lies and falsehood. For though God punisheth thee not 
by and bye, as He did this Ananias, yet He shall find thee ; 
surely He will not forget thee. Therefore learn here to take 
heed of falsehood, and beware of lies. For this Ananias, this 
wilful Ananias, I say, because of this wilful lie, went to hell 
with his wife, and there shall be punished world without end. 
Where you see what a thingf it is to make a lie. This 
Ananias needed not to sell his lands, he had no such com- 
mandment : but seeing he did so, and then came and brought 
but half the price, making a pretence as though he had 
brought all, for that he was punished so grievously. O what 



* Of, 1584. 



t Grievous thing, 1562. 



OUR DAILY BREAD. 



117 



lies are made now-a-days in England, here and there in the 
markets ! truly it is a pitiful thing that we nothing consider 
it. This one ensample of Ananias and Saphira, their punish- 
ment, is able to condemn the whole world. 

You have heard now, how men had things in common in 
the first church: but St. Paul he teacheth us how things 
ought to be in common amongst us, saying, Sitis necessita- 
tibus sanctorum commtmicantes j "Help the necessity of those 
which be poor." Our good is not so ours that we may do 
with it what us listeth ; but we ought to distribute it unto 
them which have need. No man, as I told you before, ought 
to take away my goods from me ; but I ought to distribute 
that that I may spare, and help the poor withal. Communi- 
cantes necessitatibus, saith St. Paul; "Distribute them unto 
the poor, let them lack nothing; but help them with such 
things as you may spare." For so it is written, Cm plus 
datum est, plus reqtdretur ab illoj "He that hath much, must 
make account for much ; and if he have not spent it well, he 
must make the heavier account." But I speak not this to let 
poor folks from labour ; for we must labour and do the works 
of our vocation, every one in his calling : for so it is written, 
Labor es manuum tuarum manducabis, et bene tibierit* "Thou 
shalt eat thy hand-labour, and it shall go well with thee." 
That is to say, every man shall work for his living, and shall 
not be a sluggard, as a great many be : every man shall 
labour and pray ; then God will send him his living. St. 
Paul saith, Qui non laborat, non comedat ; " He that laboureth 
not, let him not eat." Therefore those lubbers which will not 
labour, and might labour, it is a good thing to punish them 
according unto the king's most godly statutes. For God 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



himself saith, In sudore vultus tui vesceris pane tuoj "In the 
sweat of thy face thou shalt eat thy bread." Then cometh in 
St. Paul, who saith, Magis autem laboret tit det indigentibus ; 
" Let him labour the sorer, that he may have wherewith to 
help the poor." And Christ himself saith, Melius est dare 
quam accipere ; " It is better to give than to take." So Christ, 
and all his apostles, yea, the whole scripture admonisheth us 
ever of our neighbour, to take heed of him, to be pitiful unto 
him : but God knoweth there be a great many which care 
little for their neighbours. They do like as Cain did, when 
God asked him, " Cam, where is thy brother Abel ?" "What," 
saith he, " am I my brother's keeper ?" So these rich frank- 
lings,* these covetous fellows, they scrape all to themselves, 
they think they should care for nobody else but for them- 
selves : God commandeth the poor man to labour the sorer, 
to the end that he may be able to help his poor neighbour : 
how much more ought the rich to be liberal unto them ! 

But you will say, " Here is a marvellous doctrine, which 
commandeth nothing but ' Give, give' : if I shall follow this 
doctrine, I shall give so much, that at the length I shall 
have nothing left for myself." These be words of infidelity : 
he that speaketh such words is a faithless man. And I pray 
you, tell me, have ye heard of any man that came to poverty 
because he gave unto the poor ? Have you heard tell of such 
a one ? No, I am sure you have not. And I dare lay my 
head to pledge for it, that no man living hath come, or shall 
hereafter come to poverty, because he hath been liberal in 
helping the poor. For God is a true God, and no liar : He 



A man above a vassal ; a freeholder. 



OUR DAILY BREAD. 



119 



promiseth us in His word, that we shall have the more by 
giving to the needy. Therefore the way to get it is to scatter 
that that you have. Give, and you shall gain. If you ask me, 
How shall I get riches ?" I make thee this answer : " Scat- 
ter that that thou hast : for giving is gaining." But you must 
take heed, and scatter it according unto God's will ana 
pleasure ; that is, to relieve the poor withal, to scatter it 
amongst the flock of Christ. Whosoever giveth so shall surely 
gain : for Christ saith, Date et dabitur vobisj " Give, and 
it shall be given unto you." Dabitur, 4i it shall be given 
unto you." This is a sweet" word, we can well away with 
that ; but how shall we come by it ? Date, " Give." This 
is the way to get, — to relieve the poor. Therefore this is 
a false and wicked proposition, to think that with giving 
unto the poor we shall come to poverty. What a giver was 
Loth, that good man : came he to poverty through giving ? 
No, no ; he was a great rich man. Abraham, the father of 
all believers, what a liberal man was he ; insomuch that he 
sat by his door watching when anybody went by the way, 
that he might call him, and relieve his necessity ! What, 
came he to poverty? No, no :' he died a great rich man. 
Therefore let us follow the ensample of Loth and Abraham : 
let us be liberal, and then we shall augment our stock. For 
this is a most certain and true word, Date, et dabitu?' vobis; 
" Give, and it shall be given unto you." But we believe it 
not ; we cannot away with it. The most part of us are more 
given to take from the poor, than to relieve their poverty. 
They be so careful for their children, that they cannot tell 
when they be well. They purchase this house and that 
house: but what saith the prophet? Vcp, qui conjungitis 



120 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



domum domui; "Woe be unto you that join house to house P 
the curse of God hangeth over your heads. Christ saith, 
Qui diligit ftatrem vel matrem vel Jilios plus quam me non 
est me digitus j "He that loveth his father or mother or 
children more than me. he is not meet for me." Therefore 
those which scrape and gather ever for their children, and in 
the mean season forget the poor, whom God would have 
relieved ; those, 1 say, regard their children more than God's 
commandments : for their children must be set up, and the 
poor miserable people is forgotten in the mean season. There 
is a common saying amongst the worldlings, Happy is that 
child whose father goeth to the devil : but this is a worldly 
happiness. The same is seen when the child can begin with 
two hundred pound, whereas his father began with nothing : 
it is a wicked happiness, if the father gat those goods 
wickedly. And there is no doubt but. many a father goeth to 
the devil for his child's sake ; in that he neglected God's 
commandment, scraped for his child, and forgat to relieve his 
poor miserable neighbour. We have in scripture Qui mise- 
retur pauperis, foeneratur Deo j " Whosoever hath pity over 
the poor, he lendeth unto God upon usury that is to say, 
God will give it unto him again with increase : this is a 
lawful and godly usury. 

Certain it is, that usury was allowed by the laws of this 
realm;* yet it followed not that usury was godly, nor allowed 
before God. For it is not a good argument, to say, "It is 
forbidden to take ten pounds of the hundred, ergo, I may 



* The laws that "allowed" usury were repealed, and all usury 
strictly forbidden by the 5 and 6 Edw. VI, c. 20. 



OUR DAILY BREAD. 



121 



take five like as a thief cannot say, " It is forbidden in the 
law to steal thirteen-pence half-penny ; ergo, I may steal six- 
pence, or three-pence, or two-pence." No, no ; this reasoning 
will not serve afore God : for though the law of this realm 
hangeth him not, if he steal four-pence, yet for all that he is 
a thief before God, and shall be hanged on the fiery gallows 
in hell. So he that occupieth usury, though by the laws of 
this realm he might do it without punishment, (for the laws 
are not so precise,) yet for all that he doth wickedly in the 
sight of God. For usury is wicked before God, be it small or 
great ; like as theft is wicked. But I will tell you how you 
shall be usurers to get much gain. Give it unto the poor : 
then God will give it to thee with gain. Give twenty pence, 
and thou shalt have forty pence. It shall come again, thou 
shalt not lose it ; or else God is not God. What needeth it 
to use such deceitfulness and falsehood to get riches ? Take 
a lawful way to get them ; that is, to scatter this abroad that 
thou hast, and then thou shalt have it again with great gain : 
quadruplum, " four times/' saith scripture. Now God's 
word saith, that I shall have again that which I laid out with 
usury, with gain. Is it true that God saith ? Yes : then let 
me not think, that giving unto the poor doth diminish my 
stock, when God saith the contrary, namely, that it shall in- 
crease ; or else we make God a liar. For if I believe not His 
sayings, then by mine infidelity I make Him a liar, as much 
as is in me. Therefore learn here to commit usury: and 
specially you rich men, you must learn this lesson well ; for 
of you it is written, "Whosoever hath much, must make ac- 
count for much." And you have much, not to that end, to do 
with it what you lust ; but you must spend it as God ap- 



122 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



point eth you in His word to do : for no rich man can say be- 
fore God, "This is my own." No, he is but an officer over it, 
an almoner, God's treasurer. Our Saviour saith, Omnis q2ii 
reliquerit agriun, etc., centuplum accipietj "Whosoever shall 
leave this field, shall receive it again an hundred-fold." As, 
if I should be examined now of the papists, if they should ask 
me, "Believe you in the mass ?" I say, "No; according unto 
God's word, and my conscience, it is naught, it is but deceit- 
fulness, it is the devil's doctrine." Now I must go to prison, 
I leave all things behind me, wife and children, goods and 
land, and all my friends : I leave them for Christ's sake, in 
his quarrel. What saith our Saviour unto it ? Centuplum 
accipietj "I shall have an hundred times so much." Now 
though this be spoken in such wise, yet it may be understood 
of alms-giving too. For that man or woman that can find in 
their hearts for God's sake to leave ten shillings or ten 
pounds, they shall have an hundred-fold again in this life, 
and in the world to come life everlasting." If this will not 
move our hearts, then they are more than stony and flinty ; 
then our damnation is just and well-deserved. For to give 
alms, it is like as when a man cometh unto me, and desireth 
an empty purse of me : I lend him the purse, he cometh by 
and by and bringeth it full of money, and he giveth it me ; 
so that I have now my purse again, and the money too. So 
it is to give alms : we lend an empty purse, and take a full 
purse for it. Therefore let us persuade ourselves in our 
hearts, that to give for God's sake is no loss unto us, but 
great gain. And truly the poor man doth more for the rich 
man in taking things of him, than the rich doth for the poor 
in giving them. For the rich giveth but only worldly 



OUR DAILY BREAD. 



123 



goods, but the poor giveth him by the promise of God all 
felicity. 

Quotidianutn, " Daily." Here we learn to cast away all 
carefulness, and to come to this storehouse of God, where Ave 
shall have all things competent both for our souls and bodies. 
Further, in this petition we desire that God will feed not only 
our bodies, but also our souls ; and so we pray for the office 
of preaching. For like as the body must be fed daily with 
meat, so the soul requireth her meat, which is the word of 
God. Therefore we pray here for all the clergy, that they 
may do their duties, and feed us with the word of God ac- 
cording to their calling. 

Now I have troubled you long, therefore I will make an 
end. I desire you remember to resort to this storehouse : 
whatsoever ye have need of, come hither ; here are all things 
necessary for your soul and body, only desire them. But you 
have heard how you must be apparelled ; you must labour 
and do your duties, and then come, and you shall find all 
things necessary for you : and specially now at this time let 
us resort unto God ; for it is a great drought, as we think, 
and we have need of rain. Let us therefore resort unto our 
loving Father, which promiseth, that when we call upon Him 
with a faithful heart, He will hear us. Let us therefore desire 
Him to rule the matter so, that we may have our bodily sus- 
tenance. We have the ensample of Elias, whose prayer God 
heard. Therefore let us pray this prayer, which our Saviour 
and Redeemer Jesus Christ Himself taught us, saying, "Our 
Father, which art in heaven," etc. Amen, 



THE ART OF CONTENTMENT* 



E propose to speak of two things concerning 
Christian contentment ; first of the nature of it, 
and wherein it consists ; and then of the art of 
it, and how it may be attained. The nature of it 
is, that man only liveth truly contented that can suffice him- 
self, — first, with his own estate ; secondly, with the present 
estate ; thirdly, (being his own and the present), with any 
estate, " in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content." 
I am now, by the laws of good order, to proceed to the like 
discovery of the art of contentment : "I have learned, in 
whatsoever state I am, to be therewith content." 

St. Paul was not framed unto it by the common instinct of 
nature, neither had he hammered it out by his own industry, 
or by any wise improvement of nature from the precepts of 
philosophy and morality ; nor did it spring from the abund- 
ance of outward things as either an effect or an appurtenance 
thereof. It was the Lord alone that had wrought it in his 
heart by his saving and sanctifying Spirit, and trained him up. 
thereunto in the school of experience and afflictions. The 

"For I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be 
content." — Philip, iv, II. 




THE ART OF CONTENTMENT 12$ 



sum is, that true contentedness of mind is a point of high 
and holy learning whereunto no man can attain, unless it be 
taught him from above. What the apostle saith of faith is 
true also generally of every other grace, and of this in par- 
ticular, as an especial, an infallible effect of faith ; " not of 
yourselves, it is the gift of God." And of this in particular 
the preacher so affirms in Eccles. v, " Every man also to whom 
God hath given riches and wealth, and hath given him power 
to eat thereof, and to take his portion, and to rejoice in his 
labour, this is the gift of God." 

Neither is it a common gift, like that of the rain and sun, 
the comforts whereof are indifferently afforded to good and 
bad, to the thankless as well as the thankful ; but it is a spe- 
cial favour, which God vouchsafeth to none but to those that 
are his special favourites, his beloved ones ; "He giveth his 
beloved sleep" : while others rise up early, and go to bed late, 
and eat the bread of sorrows, restlessly wearing out their 
bodies with toil and their minds with care, they lay them 
down in peace, and their minds are at rest. They sleep, but 
it is the Lord only that maketh their rest so soft and safe. 
He giveth them sleep, and the bestowing of such a gift is an 
argument of his special love towards, them that partake it : 
He giveth His beloved sleep. It is, indeed, God's good 
blessing if he give to any man bare riches, but if he be pleased 
to second that common blessing with a farther blessing, and 
to give contentment withal, then it is to be acknowledged a 
singular and most excellent blessing ; as Solomon saith, 
"The blessing of the Lord it maketh rich, and He addeth 
no sorrow with it." It is not, therefore, without cause that 
our apostle so speriketh of contentment as of the handmaid 



125 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



unto godliness ; " But godliness with contentment is great 
gain," 

The truth whereof will yet farther appear unto us, if we 
shall consider of these two grounds, — first, that in all other 
things there is an insufficiency ; and, secondly, that there is a 
sufficiency in the grace of God to work contentment. We 
cannot conceive any other things, besides the grace of God, 
from which contentment can be supposed to spring, but these 
three — nature, morality, and outward things ; all which in 
the trial will appear to be altogether insufficient to work this 
effect. First, nature, as it is now corrupt, inclineth our hearts 
and affections strongly to the world, the inordinate love 
whereof first breedeth and then cherisheth our discontent ; 
whilst between the desire of having and the fear of wanting, 
we continually pierce ourselves through with a thousand cares 
and sorrows. Our lusts are vast as the sea, and restless as the 
sea, and, as the sea, will not be bounded but by an Almighty 
Power. The horse-leech hath but two daughters, but we 
have I know not how many craving lusts no less importu- 
nately clamorous than they, till they be served, incessantly 
crying " Give, give," but much more unsatisfied than they, 
for they will be filled in time, and when they are full they 
tumble off, and there's an end. But our lusts will never be 
satisfied : like Pharaoh's thin kine, when they have eaten up 
all the fat ones, they are still as hungry and as whining as 
they were before. We are by nature infinitely covetous, we 
never think ourselves rich enough, but still w T ish more ; and 
we are by nature infinitely timorous, we never think ourselves 
safe enough, but still fear want. Neither of both which 
alone, much less both together, can stand with true content- 



THE ART OF CONTENTMENT. 127 



ment. This flower then groweth not in the garden of Nature, 
which is so rankly overgrown with so many and such pesti- 
lent and noisome weeds. 

But perhaps the soil may be so improved by the culture of 
philosophy, and the malignity of it so corrected by moral in- 
stitution, as that contentment may grow and thrive in it. No; 
that will not do the deed either. True it is that there are to 
be found in the writings of heathen orators, poets, and philo- 
sophers, many excellent and acute sentences and precepts 
tending this way, and very worthy to be taken notice of by us 
Christians, both to our wonder and shame. To our wonder, 
that they could espy so much light as they did at so little a 
peep-hole ; but to our shame withal, who, enjoying the benefit 
of divine revelation, and living in the open sunshine of the 
glorious gospel of truth, have profited thereby in so small a 
proportion beyond them. But all their sentences and pre- 
cepts fall short of the mark ; they could never reach that 
solid contentment they levelled at. The shadow they might 
catch at ; but when they came to grasp the substance, they 
ever found themselves deluded. As the blinded people of 
Sodom, that guilty city, that beset Lot's house, they fumbled 
about the door, perhaps sometimes stumbled at the threshold, 
but could not for their lives either find or make themselves a 
way into the inner rooms. The greatest contentments their 
speculation could perform unto them were, not a calm and 
soft sleep like that which our God giveth his beloved ones, 
but as the slumbering dorms* of a sick man, very short, and 



* Short periods of sleep. The good Bishop, probably, made this 
word from the Latin dormiens, pres. part, of dormire, to sleep. We 



123 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



those also interrupted with a medley of cross and confused 
fancies, which, possibly, may be some small refreshing to 
them amid their long weary sins, but cannot well be called 
rest, Now, the very true reason of this insufficiency in what- 
soever precepts of morality unto true contentment, is because 
the topics from whence they draw their persuasions are of 
too flat and low an elevation ; as being taken from the dig- 
nity of man, from the baseness of outward things, from the 
mutability of fortune, from the shortness and uncertainty of 
life, and such like other considerations as come within their 
own sphere ; useful, indeed, in their kind, but unable to bear 
such a pile and roof as they would build thereupon. But 
as for the true grounds of sound contentment, which are the 
persuasions of the special providence of God over his children, 
as of a wise and loving father, whereby he disposeth all things 
unto them for the best ; and a lively faith resting upon the 
rich and precious promises of God revealed in His holy 
Word ; they were things quite out of their element, and such 
as they were wholly ignorant of. And, therefore, no marvel 
if they were so far to seek in this high and holy learning. 

But might there not, in the third place, be shaped, at least 
might there not be imagined, a fitness and competency of 
outward things, in such a mediocrity of proportion every way 
unto a man's hopes and desires as that contentment would 

have our words "dormancy" and "dormant"; but I have never 
met with "dorms" elsewhere. In the state trials, anno 1600, we 
have it said of Queen Mary that " she had revived an ill -precedency 
of taxation after a dormancy of centuries." Our dormer windows, 
u e., windows of place9 where people sleep, comes nearest to the 
bishop's word. 



THE ART OF CONTENTMENT. 129 

arise from it of itself, and that the party could not choose 
but rest satisfied therewithal ? Nothing less. For, first, ex- 
perience showeth us that contentment ariseth not from the 
things but from the mind ; even by this, that discontents take 
both soonest and sorest of the greatest and wealthiest men, 
which would not be if greatness or wealth were the main 
things required to breed contentment. Secondly, those men 
that could not frame their hearts to contentment when they 
had less, will be as far from it if ever they shall have more ; 
for their desires and the things will still keep at a distance, 
because, as the things come on, so their desires come on too ; 
as in a coach, though it hurry away never so fast, yet the 
hinder wheels will still be behind the former as much as they 
were before. And therefore our apostle, in the next verse, 
maketh it a point of equal skill and of like deep learning to 
know how to be full as well as how to be hungry, and how to 
abound as well as how to suffer need. Thirdly, it is impos- 
sible that contentment should arise from these things, be- 
cause contentment supposeth a sufficiency, whereas there is 
ever some deficiency or other in the things desired. What 
man had ever all things so sortable to his desires but he could 
espy something or other wanting ? And many times, all he 
hath doth him not so much pleasure as the want of that one 
thing tortureth him. As all Hainan's wealth, and honours, 
and favour with the king, and power in the court, availed him 
nothing for want of Mordecai's knee. And Ahab could not 
be merry, nor sleep, nor eat bread, though he swayed the 
sceptre of a mighty kingdom, for want of Naboth's vineyard. 
Or if we could suppose contentment should arise from the 
things, yet (fourthly) it could have no stability nor certainty 

K 



130 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



of continuance, because the things themselves are subject to 
casualties and vicissitudes. And the mind of a man that 
should repose upon such things must needs rise and fall, ebb 
and flow, just as the things themselves do, which is contrary 
to the state of a true contented mind, which still remaineth 
the same and unchanged notwithstanding whatsoever changes 
and chances happen in these outward and mutable things, 

We see now the insufficiency of nature, of morality, of out- 
ward things, to bring contentment. It remaineth, then, that 
it must spring from religion and from the grace of God, seated 
in the heart of every godly man, which casteth him into anew 
mould, and frameth the heart to a blessed calm within, what- 
soever storms are abroad and without. And in this grace 
there is no defect. As the Lord sometimes answered our 
apostle, when he was importunate with him for that which he 
thought not fit at that time to grant, " My grace is sufficient 
for thee." He, then, that would attain to St. Paul's learning 
must repair to the same school where St. Paul got his learn- 
ing, and he must apply himself to the same tutor that St. 
Paul had. He must not languish in Porticu or in Lycseo, 
at the feet of Plato or Seneca : but he must get him into the 
sanctuary of God. He must "be taught of God, and by the 
anointing of His Holy Spirit of grace, which anointing 
teacheth us all things" (i John ii). AU other masters 
are either ignorant, or envious, or idle. Some things they 
are not able to teach us, though they would ; some things 
they are not willing to teach us, though they might ; but this 
anointing is every way a most complete tutor, able, and 
loving, and active. This anointing teacheth us all things, 
and amongst other things, this art of contentation also. Now, 



THE ART OF CONTENTMENT. 131 

as for the means whereby the Lord traineth us up by his holy 
grace unto this learning, they are especially these three : — 

First, by His Spirit He worketh this persuasion in our 
hearts, that whatsoever He disposeth unto us at any time for 
the present, that is evermore the fittest and best for us at that 
time. He giveth us to see that all things are guided and or- 
dered by a most just, and wise, and powerful Providence. 
And although it be not fit for us to be acquainted with the 
particular reasons of such his wise and gracious dispensations, 
yet we are assured, in the general, that "all things work to- 
gether for the best to those that love God f that He is a loving 
and careful father of his children, and will neither bring any- 
thing upon them, nor keep anything back from them, but for 
their good ; that he is a most skilful and compassionate phy- 
sician, such a one as at all times, and perfectly, understandetli 
the true state and temper of our hearts and affections, and 
accordingly ordereth us and dieteth us as He seeth it most 
behooveful for us, in that present state, for the preservation 
or recovery of our spiritual strength, or for the prevention of 
future maladies. And this persuasion is one special means 
whereby the Lord teacheth us contentment with whatsoever 
He sendeth. 

Secondly, whereas there are in the Word scattered every- 
where many gracious and precious promises, not only con- 
cerning the life to come, but also concerning this present life r 
the spirit of grace in the heart of the godly teacheth them by 
faith to gather up all those scattered promises, and to apply 
them for their own comfort upon every needful occasion. 
They hear by the outward preaching of the Word, and arc 
assured of the truth thereof by the inward teaching of the 



132 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



Spirit, that God "will never fail them nor forsake them ;" that 
He is "their shepherd, and therefore they shall not want." 
but His "goodness and mercy shall follow them all the days 
of their lives ;" that "His eye is upon them that fear Him, to 
deliver their souls from death, and to feed them in the time 
of dearth ;" that He will "give grace and worship, and with- 
hold no good thing from them that live a godly life ;" that 
though "the lions," the great and greedy oppressors of the 
world, "may lack and suffer hunger, yet they which seek the 
Lord shall want no manner of thing that is good ;" and a 
thousand other such-like promises they hear and believe. 
The assurance whereof is another special means by which 
the Lord teacheth his children to repose themselves in a quiet 
content, without fear of want, or too much though tfulness for 
the future. 

Thirdly, for our better learning, besides these lectures of 
His providence and promises, He doth also both appoint us 
exercises, and discipline us with His rod ; by sending changes 
and afflictions, in our bodies, and in our names, in our friends, 
in our estates, in the success of our affairs, and many other 
ways ; but always "for our profit." And this his wise teaching 
of us bringeth on our learning wonderfully. As for those 
whose "houses are safe from fear, neither is the rod of God 
upon them," as Job speaketh, that are never emptied nor 
"poured from vessel to vessel," they "settle upon their own 
dregs, and grow muddy and musty with long ease, and their 
prosperity befooleth them to their own destruction." When 
these come once to stirring, and trouble overtaketh them, as 
sooner or later they must look for it, then the grumbles and 
mud of their impatience and discontent beginneth to appear. 



THE ART OF CONTENTMENT 



1.33 



and becometh unsavoury both to God and man. But as for 
those whom the Lord hath taken into His own tuition and 
nurturing, He will not suffer them either to wax wanton with 
too long ease, nor to be depressed with too heavy troubles ; 
but by frequent changes He exerciseth them, and inureth 
them to all estates. As a good captain traineth his soldiers, 
and putteth them out of one posture into another, that they 
may be expert in ail, so the Lord of Hosts traineth up His 
soldiers by "the armour of righteousness on the right hand, 
and on the left, by honour and dishonour, by evil report and 
good report by health and sickness, by sometimes raising 
new friends, and sometimes taking away the old ; by some- 
times suffering their enemies to get the upper hand, and 
sometimes bringing them under again ; by sometimes giving 
success to their affairs even beyond their expectation, and 
sometimes dashing their hopes when they were almost come 
to full ripeness. He turneth them this way, and that way, 
and every way, till they know all their postures, and can 
readily cast themselves into any form that He shall appoint. 
They are often abased, and often exalted; now full, and anon 
hungry ; one while they abound, and they suffer need another 
while; till, with our apostle, they "know both how to be 
abased and how to abound", till "everywhere, and in all 
things, they be instructed both to be full and to be hungry, 
both to abound and to suffer need"; till they can, at least in 
some weak, yet comfortable measure, "do all things through 
Christ that strengtheneth them". These exercises are indeed 
the most unpleasing part of this holy learning, especially to a 
young novice in the school of Christ. The apostle saith truly 
of it that "for the present it is not joyous, but grievous"; but 



134 THE SILENT HOUR. 

yet it is a very necessary part of the learning, and marvellously 
profitable after a time ; for, as it there also followeth, "never- 
theless, afterwards it yieldeth the quiet and peaceable fruit of 
ngnteousness unto them who are exercised thereby". 

Try thyself then, brother, by these and the like signs, and 
accordingly judge what progress thou hast made in this so 
high and useful a part of Christian learning, i. If thou 
scornest to gain by any unlawful or unworthy means. 2. If 
thy desires and cares for the things of this life be regular and 
moderate. 3. If thou canst find in thy heart to take thy por- 
tion, and to bestow thereof for thine own comfort. 4. And to 
dispense though but the superfluities for the charitable relief 
of thy poor neighbour. 5. If thou canst want what thou de- 
sirest without murmuring. 6. And lose what thou possessest 
without impatience, then mayest thou with some confidence 
say with our apostle in the text, " I have learned, in whatso- 
ever state I am, therewith to be content." But if any one of 
these particular signs be wholly wanting in thee, thou art then 
but a truant in this learning, and it will concern thee to set so 
much the harder to it, and to apply thyself more seriously 
and diligently to this study hereafter than hitherto thou hast 
done. . . . 

But for the more special means, the first thing to be done 
is to labour for a true and lively faith. For faith is the very 
basis, the foundation whereupon our heart and all our heart's 
contents must rest ; the whole frame of our contentment 
rising higher or lower, weaker or stronger, in proportion to- 
that foundation. And this faith, as to our present purpose, 
hath a double object, as before was touched — to wit, the 
goodness of God, and the truth of God. His goodness in the 



THE ART OF CONTENTMENT. 135 

dispensation of His special providence for the present, and 
His truth in the performance of His temporal promises for 
the future. First, then, labour to have thy heart thoroughly 
persuaded of the goodness of God towards thee ; that He is 
thy father, and that whether He frown upon thee, or correct 
thee, or howsoever otherwise He seem to deal with thee, He 
still beareth a fatherly affection towards thee ; that what He 
giveth thee, He giveth in love, because He seeth it best for 
thee to have it ; and what He denieth thee, He denieth in 
love, because He seeth it best for thee to want it. A sick 
man, in the extremity of His distemper, desireth some of 
those that are about him, and sit at his bedside, as they love 
him, to give him a draught of cold water to allay his thirst ; but 
cannot obtain it from his dearest wife that lieth in his bosom, 
nor from his nearest friend that loveth him as his own soul. 
They consider that if they should satisfy his desire, they 
should destroy his life ; they will, therefore, rather urge him, 
and even compel him, to take what the doctor hath pre- 
scribed, how unpleasant and distasteful soever it may seem 
unto him. And then, if pain and the impotency of his desire 
will but permit him the use of his reason, he yieldeth to their 
persuasions ; for then he considereth that all this is done out 
of their love to him, and for his good, both when he is denied 
what he most desireth, and when he is pressed to take what 
he vehemently abhorreth. Persuade thyself in like sort of 
all the Lord's dealings with thee. If at any time He do not 
answer thee in the desires of thy heart, conclude there is 
either some unworthiness in thy person, or some inordinancy 
in thy desire, or some unfitness or unseasonableness in the 
thing desired ; something or other not right on thy 



136 



THE SILENT HOUR, 



part, but be sure not to impute it to any defect of love in 
Him. 

And as thou art steadfastly to believe His goodness and 
love in ordering all things in such sort as He doth for the 
present, so oughtest thou, with like steadfastness, to rest upon 
His truth and faithfulness for the making good of all those 
gracious promises that He hath made in His Word concern- 
ing thy temporal provision and preservation for the future. 
"Only understand those promises rightly, with their due con- 
ditions and limitations, and in that sense wherein He intended 
them when He made them, and never doubt the perform- 
ance;" for say, in good sooth, art thou able to charge Him 
with any breach of promise hitherto ? Hast thou ever found 
that He hath dealt unfaithfully with thee, or didst thou ever 
hear that He hath dealt unfaithfully with any other ? There 
is no want of power in Him that He should not be as big as 
His word; there is no want of love in Him that He should 
not be as good as His word ; "He is not as man that He 
should repent, or as the son of man that He should call back 
His word." Repose thyself with assured confidence upon His 
promises, and contentment will follow. Upon this base the 
apostle hath bottomed contentation. "Be content with such 
things as ye have, for He hath said, I will never leave thee 
nor forsake thee." 

The next thing we are to look after in this business is 
humility and poverty of spirit. It is our pride most that un- 
doeth us ; much of our discontent springeth from it. We 
think highly of ourselves, thence our envy, fretting and pining 
away when we see others who we think deserve not much 
better than we do, to have yet much more than we have, 
wealth, honour, power, ease, reputation, anything. Pride and 



THE ART OF CONTENTMENT. 



137 



beggary sort ill together, even in our own judgments: so 
hateful a thing is a proud beggar in the opinion of the world, 
that proverbs have grown from it. We think he better de- 
serveth the stocks or the whip than an alms that beggeth at 
our doors, and yet taketh scornfully what is given him if it be 
not of the best in the house. Can we hate this in others to- 
wards ourselves, and yet be so blinded with pride and self- 
love as not to discern the same hateful disposition in ourselves 
towards our good God? Extremely beggarly we are. Are we 
not very beggars, that came naked into the world, and must 
go naked out of it ? that brought nothing along with us at our 
coming, and it is certain we shall carry nothing away with us 
at our departure ? are we not arrant beggars that must beg, 
and that daily, for our daily bread? and yet are we also 
extremely proud, and take the alms that God thinketh fit to 
bestow upon us, in great snuff,* if it be not to our liking. 
Alas ! what could we look for if God should give us but 
what we deserve ? We are not worthy so much as to gather 
the crumbs under His table, as our dogs do under ours, who 
far better deserve it at our hands than we do at His : our 
hands did not make them or fashion them, yet they love us, 
and follow us, and guard our houses, and do us pleasures 
and services many other ways : but we, although we are His 
creatures, and the workmanship of His hands, yet do nothing 
(as of ourselves) but hate Him, and dishonour Him, and 
rebel against Him, and by most unworthy provocations, daily 

* " In great snuff" This phrase was once a common expression; 
it means to take anything in scorn, anger, or indignation. "The 
bride was praising Sir Dauphine, and he went away in snuff, and I 
followed him." Jonson's Silent Woman, Act iv, sc. 2. Quoted by 
Richardson. 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



done by casting our eyes as well upon what we have, and 
and minutely, tempt His patience ; and what good thing can 
we deserve at His hands ? rather what evil thing do we not 
deserve, if He should render to us according as we deal with 
Him ? Why should we then be displeased with any of His 
dispensations ? Having deserved nothing, we may very well 
hold ourselves content with anything. 

A third help unto contentation is, to set a just valuation 
upon the things we have. We commonly have our eye upon 
those things which we desire, and set so great a price upon 
them, that the overvaluing of what we have in chase and ex- 
pectation maketh us as much undervalue what Ave have in 
present possession, — an infirmity to which the best of the 
faithful, the father of the faithful not excepted, are subject ; 
it was the speech of no worse a man than Abraham, " O 
Lord" saith he, " what wilt thou give me, seeing I go child- 
less ?" As if he had said, " all this great increase of cattle 
and abundance of treasure which thou hast given me avail 
me nothing, so long as I have never a child to leave it to." 
It dififereth not much, you see, from the speech of discon- 
tented Haman, " All this availeth me nothing, so long as I 
see Mordecai", save that Abraham's speech proceeded from 
the weakness of his faith at that time and under that tempta- 
tion, and Haman's from habitual infidelity, and a heart totally 
carnal. It is the admirable goodness of a gracious God that 
he accepteth the faith of his poor servants, be it never so 
small, and passeth by the defects thereof, be they never so. 
great, only it should be our care not to flatter ourselves so 
far as to cherish those infirmities or allow ourselves therein, 
but rather to strive against them with our utmost strength, 
that we may overcome the temptation : and that is best 



THE ART OF CONTENTMENT. 



139 



could not well be without, as upon what we fain would have, 
but might want. The things the Lord already hath lent thee, 
consider how useful they are to thee, how beneficial, how com- 
fortable, how ill thou couldst spare them, how much worse 
thou shouldst be than now thou art without them, how many 
men in the world that want what thou enjoyest, would be 
glad with all their hearts to exchange for it that which thou 
so much desirest ; and let these considerations prevail with 
thee, both to be thankful for what God hath been pleased 
already to give thee, and to be content to want what it is His 
pleasure to withhold from thee. 

Another help for the same purpose, fourthly, is to compare 
ourselves and our estates rather with those that are below us 
than with those that are above us. We love comparisons but 
too well, unless we could make better use of them. We run 
over all our neighbours in our thoughts, and when we have so 
done, we make our comparisons so untowardly, that there is 
no neighbour we have but (as we handle the matter) we are 
the worse for him ; we find in him something or other that 
serveth as fuel either to our pride or uncharitableness, or 
other corrupt lusts. We look at our poorer neighbour, and 
because we are richer than he, we cast a scornful eye upon 
him, and in the pride of our hearts despise him. We look 
at our richer neighbour, and because we are not so full as he, 
we cast an envious eye at him, and out of the uncharitableness 
of our hearts malice him. Thus unhappily do we misplace 
our thoughts or misapply them, and whatsoever the promises 
are, draw wretched conclusions from them, as the spider is 
said to suck poison out of every flower ; whereas sanctified 
wisdom, if it might be heard, would rather teach us to make 



140 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



a holy advantage of such-like comparisons for the increase 
of some precious graces in us, and, namely, these two — of 
thankfulness and contentedness, as the bee gathereth honey 
out of every weed. And the course is this : observe thy pre- 
sent corruption, whatever it be, when it beginneth to stir 
within thee, and then make the comparison so as may best 
serve to weaken the temptation arising from that lust ; as, for 
example, when thou findest thyself apt to magnify and exalt 
thyself in thine own greatness, and puffed up with the con- 
ceit of some excellency (whether real or but imaginary) in 
thyself, to swell above thy meaner brethren, then look up- 
wards, and thou shalt see, perhaps, hundreds above thee that 
have somewhat that thou hast not. It may be the comparing 
of thyself with them may help to allay the swelling, and re- 
duce thee to a more sober and humble temper. But when, 
on the other side, thou findest thyself apt to grudge at the 
prosperity of others, and to murmur at the scantiness of 
thine own portion, then look downwards, and thou shalt see, 
perhaps, thousands below thee that want something that thou 
hast. It may be the comparing thyself with them may help 
to silence all those repining thoughts and obmurmurations 
against the wise dispensations of Almighty God. For tell 
me, why should one or two richer neighbours be such a 
grievous eyesore to thee to provoke thy discontent, rather 
than ten or twenty poorer ones a spur to quicken thee to 
thankfulness? If reason, by the instigation of corrupt na- 
ture, can teach thee to argue thus : My house, my farm, my 
stock, my whole condition is naught, many a man hath better, 
— why should not reason, heightened by God's grace, teach 
thee as well to argue thus : Mine are good enough, many a 
good man hath worse ? 



THE ART OF CONTENTMENT 141 



Fifthly, for the getting of contentment, it would not a little 
avail us to consider the insufficiency of those things, the want 
whereof now discontenteth us, to give us content if we should 
obtain them. Not only for that reason, that as the things in- 
crease, our desires also increase with them, which yet is most 
true, and of very important consideration too, as Solomon 
saith, " He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver," 
but for a farther reason also, because, with the best conve- 
niences of this life, there are interwoven sundry inconveni- 
ences withal, which for the most part the eagerness of our 
desires will not suffer us to foresee whilst we have them in 
chase, but we shall be sure to find them at length in the pos- 
session and use. Whilst we are in the pursuit of anything, 
we think over and over how beneficial it may be to us, and 
we promise to ourselves much good from it, and our thoughts 
are so taken up with such meditations, that we consider it 
abstractedly from those discommodiousnesses and encum- 
brances which yet inseparably cleave thereunto ; bu.t when 
we have gotten what we so importunately desired, and think 
to enter upon the enjoyment, we then begin to find those dis- 
commodiousnesses and encumbrances, which before we never 
thought of, as well as those services and advantages which 
we expected from it. Now, if we could be so wise and pro- 
vident beforehand as to forethink and forecast the inconve- 
niences as well as the usefulness of those things we seek after, 
it would certainly bring our desires to better moderation, 
work in us a just disestimation of these earthly things, which 
we usually overprize, and make us the better contented if we 
go without them. As he said of his diadem, " What a glo- 
rious lustre doth the imperial crown make, to dazzle the eyes 



142 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



of the beholders, and to tempt ambition to wade even through 
a sea of blood, and stretch itself beyond all the lines of jus- 
tice and religion to get within the reach of it ; yet did a man 
but know what legions of fears and cares, like so many rest- 
less spirits, are encircled within that narrow round, he could 
not be excused from the extremity of madness, if he should 
much envy him that wore it, much less if he should, by vil- 
lany or bloodshed, aspire to it." When Damocles had the 
sword hanging over his head in a twine-thread, he had little 
stomach to eat of those delicacies that stood before him upon 
the board, which a little before he deemed the greatest hap- 
piness the world could afford. There is nothing under the 
sun but is full, not of vanity only, but also of vexation : why 
then should we not be well content to be without that thing 
(if it be the Lord's will we should want it), which we cannot 
have without much vanity and some vexation withal ? 

In the sixth place, a notable help to contentment is sobriety, 
under which name I comprehend both frugality and temper- 
ance. Frugality is of very serviceable use, partly to the ac- 
quiring, partly to the exercising of every man's graces and 
virtues, as magnificence, justice, liberality, thankfulness, etc., 
and this of contentation among the rest. " Hardly can that 
man be either truly thankful unto God, or much helpful to 
his friends, or do any great matters in the way of charity and 
tc pious uses, or keep touch in his promises, and pay every 
man his own, as every honest man should do, nor live a con- 
tented life, that is not frugal." We all cry out against covetous- 
ness, and that justly, as a base sin, the cause of many evils 
and mischiefs, and a main opposite to contentment. But, 
truly, if things be rightly considered, we shall find prodigality 



THE ART OF CONTENTMENT. 



143 



to match it, as in sundry other respects, so particularly for the 
opposition it hath to contentedness ; for contentedness, as 
the very name giveth it, a self-sufficiency, consisteth in 
the mutual and relative sufficiency of the things unto the 
mind, and of the mind unto the things. "Where covetous- 
ness reigneth in the heart, the mind is too narrow for the 
things ; and where the estate is profusely wasted, the things 
must needs be too scant for the mind ; so that the dispropor- 
tion is still the same though it arise not from the same prin- 
ciple ; as in many other things we may observe an unhappy 
coincidence of extremes, contrary causes, for different rea- 
sons, producing one and the same evil effect. " Extreme 
cold parcheth the grass as well as extreme heat, and lines 
drawn from the opposite parts of the circumference meet in 
the centre." Although the prodigal man, therefore, utterly 
disclaim covetousness, and profess to hate it, yet doth he in- 
deed, by his wastefulness, pull upon himself a necessity of 
being covetous, and transgresseth the commandment which 
saith, " Thou shalt not covet," as much as the most covetous 
wretch in the whole world doth. " The difference is but this, 
the one coveteth that he may have it, the other coveteth that 
he may spend it ; as St. James saith, he coveteth that he 
may consume it upon his lusts." ... He that would live a 
contented life, and bear a contented mind, it standeth him 
upon to be frugal. 

Temperance, also, is of right good use to the same end, 
that is to say, a moderate use at all times, and now and then 
a voluntary forbearance of, and abstinence from, the creatures, 
when we might lawfully use them. If we would sometimes 
deny our appetites in the use of meats, and drinks, and sleep, 



144 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



and sports, and other comforts and refreshments of this life, 
and exercise ourselves sometimes to fastings and wantings, 
and other hardnesses and austerities, we should be the better 
able sure to undergo them stoutly, and grudge and shrink 
less under them, if at any time hereafter, by any accident or 
affliction, we should be hard put to it, We should, in all 
likelihood, be the better content to want many things when 
we cannot have them, if we would now and then inure our- 
selves to be as if we wanted them whilst we have them. 

Lastly, (for I may not enlarge), that meditation which was 
so frequent with the godly fathers under both Testaments, 
and whereof the more sober sort among the heathens had 
some glimmering light, that " we have here no abiding city, 
but seek one to come" ; that we are here but " as strangers 
and pilgrims" in a foreign land, heaven being our home, and 
that our continuance in this world is but as the lodging of a 
traveller in an inn for a night, — this meditation, I say, if fol- 
lowed home, would much further us in the present learning. 
The apostle seemeth to make use of it for this very purpose 
(i Tim. vi) : "We brought nothing into this world, and it is 
certain we can carry nothing out", and thence inferreth, in 
the very next words, " having food and raiment, let us be 
therewith content". We forget ourselves very much when we 
fancy to ourselves a kind of perpetuity here, as if our " houses 
should continue for ever, and our dwelling-places should re- 
main from one generation to another". We think it good 
being here ; here we would build us tabernacles, set up our 
rest here ; and that is it that maketh us so greedy after the 
things that belong hither, and so sullen and discomposed 
when our endeavours in the pursuit of them prove success- 



THE ART OF CONTENTMENT. 



less ; whereas, if we would rightly inform ourselves, and 
seriously think of it, what the world is, and what ourselves 
are, — the world but an inn, and ourselves but passengers, — 
it would fashion us to more moderate desires and better com- 
posed affections : in our inns we would be glad to have 
wholesome diet, clean lodging, diligent attendance, and all 
other things with convenience and to our liking ; but yet we 
will be wary what we call for, that we exceed not too much, 
lest the reckoning prove too sharp afterwards. 



THE FOOLISH EXCHANGE.* 



Part I. 

HEN the eternal mercy of God had decreed to 
rescue mankind from misery and infelicity, and 
so triumphed over his own justice ; the excellent 
wisdom of God resolved to do it in ways con- 
tradictory to the appetites and designs of man, that it also 
might triumph over our weaknesses and imperfect concep- 
tions. So God decreed to glorify his mercy by curing our 
sins, and to exalt his wisdom by the reproof of our ignorance, 
and the representing on what weak and false principles we 
had built our hopes and expectations of felicity ; pleasure and 
profit, victory over our enemies, riches and pompous honours, 
power and revenge, desires according to sensual appetites, 
and prosecutions violent and passionate of those appetites, 
health and long life, free from trouble, without poverty or 
persecution. 

These are the measures of good and evil, the object of our 
hopes and fears, the securing our content, and the portion of 
this world ; and for the other, let it be as it may. But the 

* " For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, 
and lose his own soul ? or what shall a man give in exchange for his 
soul?"— Matt, xvi, 26, 




THE FOOLISH EXCHANGE. 



H7 



blessed Jesus, — having made revelations of an immortal dura- 
tion, of another world, and of a strange restitution to it, even 
by the resurrection of the body, and a new investiture of the 
soul with the same upper garment, clarified and made pure, 
so as no fuller on earth can whiten it ; — hath also preached a 
new philosophy, hath cancelled all the old principles, re- 
duced the appetites of sense to the discourses of reason, and 
heightened reason to the sublimities of the Spirit, teaching 
us abstractions and immaterial conceptions, giving us new 
eyes, and new objects, and new proportions : for now sensual 
pleasures are not delightful, riches are dross, honours are 
nothing but the appendages of virtue, and in relation to it 
are to receive their account. But now if you would enjoy 
life, you must die ; if you would be at ease, you must take 
up Christ's cross, and conform to his sufferings ; if you would 
" save your life", you must " lose it" ; and if you would be 
rich, you must abound in good works, you must be " poor 
in spirit", and despise the world, and be rich unto God : for 
whatsoever is contrary to the purchases and affections of this 
world, is an endearment of our hopes in the world to come. 
And, therefore, he having stated the question so, that either 
we must quit this world or the other ; our affections, I mean, 
and adherences to this, or our interest and hopes of the other; 
the choice is rendered very easy by the words of my text, 
because the distance is not less than infinite, and the com- 
parison hath terms of a vast difference, — heaven and hell, 
eternity and a moment, vanity and real felicity, life and death 
eternal, all that can be hoped for and all that can be feared, 
these are the terms of our choice ; and if a man have his 
wits about him, and be not drunk with sensuality and sense- 



1 48 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



lessness, he need not much to dispute before he pass the 
sentence. For nothing can be given to us to recompense 
the loss of heaven, and if our souls be lost, there is nothing 
remaining to us whereby we can be happy. 

"What shall it profit a man?" or, "What shall a man 
give ?" Is there any exchange for a man s soul ? The ques- 
tion is an avfrais of the negative. Nothing can be given for 
"a price" to satisfy for its loss; the blood of the Son of 
God was given to recover it. 

And because no interest of the world can make a man re- 
compense for his life, because to lose that makes him inca- 
pable of enjoying the exchange (and he were a strange fool 
who, having no design on immortality or virtue, should be 
willing to be hanged for a thousand pounds per annum), this 
argument increases infinitely in the purpose of our blessed 
Saviour ; and to gain the world and to lose our souls, in the 
Christian sense, is infinitely more madness .and a worse ex- 
change, than when our souls signify nothing but a temporal 
life. And although possibly the indefinite hopes of Elysium, 
or an honourable name, might tempt some hardy persons to 
leave this world, hoping for a better condition, even among 
the heathens ; yet no excuse will acquit a Christian from 
madness, if, for the purchase of this world, he lose his 
eternity. 

•1. First, then, suppose a man gets all the world, what is it 
that he gets ? It is a bubble and a phantasm, and hath no 
reality beyond a present transient use ; a thing that is im-. 
possible to be enjoyed, because its fruits and usages are 
transmitted to us by parts and by succession. He that hath 
all the world (if we can suppose such a man), cannot have a 



THE FOOLISH EXCHANGE. 



149 



dish of fresh summer fruits in the midst of winter, not so 
much as a green fig ; and very much of its possessions is so 
hid, so fugacious, and of so uncertain purchase, that it is 
like the riches of the sea to the lord of the shore, — all the 
hsh and wealth within all its hollowness are his, but he is 
never the better for what he cannot get ; all the shell-fishes 
that produce pearl produce them not for him ; and the bowels 
of the earth shall hide her treasures in undiscovered retire- 
ments : so that it will signify as much to this great purchaser 
to be entitled to an inheritance in the upper region of the air ; 
he is so far from possessing all its riches that he does not so 
much as know of them, nor understand the philosophy of 
her minerals. 

2. I consider that he that is the greatest possessor in the 
world, enjoys its best and most noble parts, and those which 
are of most excellent perfection, but in common with the in- 
ferior persons, and the most despicable of his kingdom. Can 
the greatest prince inclose the sun, and set one little star in 
his cabinet for his own use, or secure to himself the gentle 
and benign influences of any one constellation ? Are not 
his subjects' fields bedewed with the same showers that water 
his gardens of pleasure ? 

Nay, those things which he esteems his ornament, and the 
singularity of his possessions, are they not of more use to 
others than to himself? For suppose his garments splendid 
and shining, like the robe of a cherub, or the clothing of the 
fields ; all that he that wears them enjoys, is that they keep 
him warm, and clean, and modest ; and all this is done by 
clean and less pompous vestments ; and the beauty of them, 
which distinguishes him from others, is made to please the 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



eyes of the beholders ; and he is like a fair bird, or the me- 
retricious painting of a wanton woman, made wholly to be 
looked on, that is, to be enjoyed by every one but himself: 
and the fairest face and the sparkling eye cannot perceive or 
enjoy their own beauties but by reflection. It is I that am 
pleased with beholding his gaiety ; and the gay man, in his 
greatest bravery, is only pleased because I am pleased with 
the sight ; so borrowing his little and imaginary complacency 
from the delight that I have, not from any inherency of his 
own possession. 

The poorest artisan of Rome, walking in Caesar's gardens, 
had the same pleasures which they ministered to their lord : 
and although it may be he was put to gather fruits to eat 
from another place, yet his other senses were delighted 
equally with Caesar's ; the birds made him as good music, 
the flowers gave him as sweet smells ; he there sucked as 
good air, and delighted in the beauty and order of the place, 
for the same reason and on the same perception as the prince 
himself; save only that Caesar paid, for all that pleasure, 
vast sums of money, the blood and treasure of a province, 
which the poor man had for nothing. 

3. Suppose a man lord of all the world (for still we are but 
in supposition) ; yet, since everything is received, not accord- 
ing to its own greatness and worth, but according to the ca- 
pacity of the receiver, it signifies very little as to our content 
or to the riches of our possession. If any man should give 
to a lion a fair meadow full of hay, or a thousand quince 
trees ; or should give to the goodly bull, the master and the 
fairest of the whole herd, a thousand fair stags ; if a man 
should present to a child a ship laden with Persian carpets, 



THE FOOLISH EXCHANGE. 



and the ingredients of the rich scarlet ; all these, being dis- 
proportionate either to the appetite or to the understanding, 
could add nothing of content, and might declare the freeness 
of the presenter, but they upbraid the incapacity of the re- 
ceiver. And so it does if God should give the whole world 
to any man. He knows not what to do with it ; he can use 
no more but according to the capacities of a man ; he can 
use nothing but meat, and drink, and clothes ; and infinite 
riches, that can give him changes of raiment every day and 
a full table, do but give him a clean trencher every bit he 
eats : it signifies no more but wantonness and variety to the 
same, not to any new purposes. He to whom the world can 
be given to any purpose greater than a private estate can 
minister, must have new capacities created in him ; he needs 
the understanding of an angel to take the accounts of his 
estate ; he had need have a stomach like fire or the grave, 
for else he can eat no more than one of his healthful sub- 
jects : and unless he hath an eye like the sun, and a motion 
like that of a thought, and a bulk as big as one of the orbs of 
heaven, the pleasures of his eye can be no greater than to 
behold the beauty of a little prospect from a hill, or to look 
on the heap of gold packed up in a little room, or to dote on a 
cabinet of jewels, better than which there is no man that 
sees at all, but sees every day. For, not to name the beau- 
ties and sparkling diamonds of heaven, a man's, or a woman's, 
or a hawk's eye, is more beauteous and excellent than all the 
jewels of his crown. And when we remember that a beast, 
who hath quicker senses than a man, yet hath not so great 
delight in the fruition of any object, because he wants under- 
standing and the power to make reflex acts on his perception, 



*52 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



it will follow that understanding and knowledge is the greatest 
instrument of pleasure, and he that is most knowing hath a 
capacity to become happy, which a less knowing prince, or 
a rich person, hath not ; and in this only a man's capacity is 
capable of enlargement. But then, although they only have 
power to relish any pleasure rightly, who rightly understand 
the nature, and degrees, and essences, and ends of things ; 
yet they that do so, understand also the vanity and the un- 
satisfyingness of the things of this world, so that the relish, 
which could not be great in a great understanding, appears 
contemptible, because its vanity appears at the same time ; 
the understanding sees all, and sees through it. 

4. The greatest vanity of this world is remarkable in this, 
that all its joys summed up together are not big enough to 
counterpoise the evil of one sharp disease, or to allay a sorrow. 
For imagine a man great in his dominion as Cyrus, rich as 
Solomon, victorious as David, beloved like Titus, learned as 
Trismegist, powerful as all the Roman greatness, — all this, 
and the results of all this, give him no more pleasure, in the 
midst of a fever or the tortures of the stone, than if he were 
only lord of a little dish, and a dishful of fountain water. 
Indeed the excellency of a holy conscience is a comfort and 
a magazine of joy, so great, that it sweetens the most bitter 
potion of the world, and makes torture and death not only 
tolerable, but amiable ; and therefore, to part with this, whose 
excellency is so great, for the world, that is of so inconsider- 
able worth, as not to have it in recompense enough for the 
sorrows of a sharp disease, is a bargain fit to be made by 
none but fools and madmen. Antiochus Epiphanes, and 
Herod the Great, and his grandchild, Agrippa, were sad in- 



THE FOOLISH EXCHANGE. 



153 



stances of this great truth ; to every of which it happened, 
that the grandeur of their fortune, the greatness of their pos- 
sessions, and the increase of their estate, disappeared and 
expired like camphire, at their arrest by those several sharp 
diseases which covered their heads with cypress, and hid 
their crowns in an inglorious grave. 

For what can all the world minister to a sick person, if it 
represents all the spoils of nature, and the choicest delicacies 
of land and sea ? Alas ! his appetite is lost, and to see a 
pebble-stone is more pleasing to him ; for he can look on 
that without loathing, but not so on the most delicious fare 
that ever made famous the Roman luxury. Perfumes make 
his head ache ; if you load him with jewels, you press him 
with a burden as troublesome as his gravestone ; and what 
pleasure is in all those possessions that cannot make his 
pillow easy, nor tame the rebellion of a tumultuous humour, nor 
restore the use of a withered hand, nor straighten a crooked 
finger ? Vain is the hope of that man, whose soul rests on 
vanity and such unprofitable possessions. 

5. Suppose a man lord of all this world, a universal 
monarch, as some princes have lately designed ; all that can- 
not minister content to him ; not that content which a poor 
contemplative man, by the strength of Christian philosophy, 
and the support of a very small fortune, daily does enjoy. All 
his power and greatness cannot command the sea to overflow 
his shores, or to stay from retiring to the opposite strand : it 
cannot make his children dutiful or wise. And though the 
world admired at the greatness of Philip the Second's fortune, 
in the accession of Portugal and the East Indies to his prin- 
cipalities, yet this could not allay the infelicity of his family, 



154 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



and the unhandsomeness of his condition, in having a proud, 
and indiscreet, and a vicious young prince, likely to inherit 
all his greatness. And if nothing appears in the face of such 
a fortune to tell all the world that it is spotted and imperfect; 
yet there is, in all conditions of the world, such weariness and 
tediousness of the spirits, that a man is ever more pleased 
with hopes of going off from the present, than in dwelling on 
that condition, which, it may be, others admire and think 
beauteous, but none knoweth the smart of it but he that drank 
off the little pleasure, and felt the ill relish of the appendage. 
How many kings have groaned under the burden of their 
crowns, and have sunk down and died! How many have 
quitted their pompous cares, and retired into private lives, 
there to enjoy the pleasures of philosophy and religion, which 
their thrones denied ! 

And if we consider the supposition of the text, the thing 
will demonstrate itself. For he who can be supposed the 
owner and purchaser of the whole world, must either be a 
king or a private person. A private person can hardly be 
supposed to be the man ; for if he be subject to another, how 
can he be lord of the whole world ? But if he be a king, it is 
certain that his cares are greater than any man's, his fears 
are bigger, his evils mountainous, the accidents that discom- 
pose him are more frequent, and sometimes intolerable ; and 
of all his great possessions he hath not the greatest use and 
benefit ; but they are like a great harvest, which more 
labourers must bring in, and more must eat of ; only he is 
the centre of all the cares, and they fix on him, but the profits 
run out to all the lines of the circle, to all that are about him, 
whose good is therefore greater than the good of the prince, 



THE FOOLISH EXCHANGE. 



155 



because what they enjoy is the purchase of the prince's care; 
and so they feed on his cost. 

Servants live the best lives, for their care is single, only how 
to please their lord; but all the burden of a troublesome pro- 
vidence and ministration makes the outside pompous and 
more full of ceremony, but intricates the condition and dis- 
turbs the quiet of the great possessor. 

And imagine a person as blest as can be supposed on the 
stock of worldly interest ; when all his accounts are cast up, 
he differs nothing from his subjects or his servants but in 
mere circumstance, nothing of reality or substance. He hath 
more to wait at his tables, or persons of higher rank to do 
the meanest offices ; more ceremonious of address, a fairer 
escutcheon, louder titles ; but can this multitude of dishes 
make him have a good stomach, or does not satiety cloy it ? 
when his high diet is such that he is not capable of being 
feasted, and knows not the frequent delights and oftener pos- 
sibilities a poor man hath of being refreshed, while not only 
his labour makes hunger, and so makes his meat delicate 
(and then it cannot be ill fare, let it be what it will) ; but also 
his provision is such, that every little addition is a direct feast 
to him ; while the greatest owner of the world, giving to him- 
self the utmost of his desires, hath nothing left beyond his 
ordinary, to become the entertainment of his festival days, 
but more loads of the same meat. And then let him consider 
how much of felicity can this condition contribute to him, in 
which he is not further gone beyond a person of a little for- 
tune in the greatness of his possession, than he is fallen short 
in the pleasures and possibility of their enjoyment. 

And that is a sad condition, when, like Midas, all that the 



i 5 6 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



man touches shall turn to gold : and his is no better, to whom 
a perpetual full table, not recreated with fasting, not made 
pleasant with intervening scarcity, ministers no more good 
than a heap of gold does ; that is, he hath no benefit of it, 
save the beholding of it with his eyes. Cannot a man quench 
his thirst as well out of an urn or chalice as out of a whole 
river ? It is an ambitious thirst, and a pride of draught, that 
had rather lay his mouth to Euphrates than to a petty 
goblet ; but if he had rather, it adds not so much to his con- 
tent as to bis danger and his vanity. 

For so I have heard of persons whom the river hath swept 
away, together with the turf they pressed, when they stooped 
to drown their pride rather than their thirst. 

6. But this supposition hath a lessening term. If a man 
could be born heir of all the world, it were something ; but no 
man ever was so, except Him only who enjoyed the least of 
it, the Son of Man, that "had not where to lay his head." 
But in the supposition it is, " If a man could gain the whole 
world," which supposes labour and sorrow, trouble and ex- 
pense, venture and hazard, and so much time expired in its 
acquist and purchase, that, besides the possession is not 
secured to us for a term of life, so our lives are almost expired 
before we become estated in our purchases. And, indeed, it 
is a sad thing to see an ambitious or a covetous person make 
his life unpleasant, troublesome, and vexatious, to grasp a 
power bigger than himself, to fight for it with infinite hazards 
of his life, so that it is a thousand to one but he perishes in 
the attempt, and gets nothing at all but an untimely grave, a 
reproachful memory, and an early damnation. But suppose 
he gets a victory, and that the unhappy party is put to begin 



THE FOOLISH EXCHANGE. 



157 



a new game ; then to see the fears, the watchfulness, the 
diligence, the laborious arts to secure a possession, lest the 
desperate party should recover a desperate game. And sup- 
pose this, with a new stock of labours, danger, and expense, 
be seconded by a new success ; then to look on the new 
emergencies, and troubles, and discontents, among his 
friends, about parting the spoil ; the envies, the jealousies, 
the slanders, the underminings, and the perpetual insecurity 
of his condition : all this, I say, is to see a man take infinite 
pains to make himself miserable. But if he will be so un- 
learned as to call this gallantry or a splendid fortune ; yet, by 
this time, when he remembers he hath certainly spent much 
of his time in trouble, and how long he shall enjoy this he is 
still uncertain ; he is not certain of a month ; and suppose it 
be seven years, yet when he comes to die, and cast up his 
accounts, and shall find nothing remaining but a sad remem- 
brance of evils and troubles past, and expectations of worse, 
infinitely worse, he must acknowledge himself convinced, that 
to gain all this wofld is a fortune not worth the labour and 
the dangers, the fears and transportations of passions, though 
the soul's loss be not considered in the bargain. 

II. But I told you all this while that this is but a supposi- 
tion still, the putting of a case or like a fiction of law ; nothing 
real. For if we consider, in the second place, how much every 
man is likely to get really, and how much it is possible for any 
men to get, we shall find the account far shorter yet, and the 
purchase most trifling and inconsiderable. For, first, the 
world is at the same time enjoyed by all its inhabitants, and 
the same portion of it by several persons in their several 
capacities. A prince enjoys his whole kingdom, not as all his 



158 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



people enjoy it, but in the manner of a prince; the subject in 
the manner of subjects. The prince hath certain regalia be- 
yond the rest; but the feudal right of subjects does them 
more emolument, and the regalia does the prince more 
honour : and those that hold the fees in subordinate right, 
transmit it also to their tenants, beneficiaries, and dependents, 
to public uses, to charity, and hospitality ; all which is a les- 
sening of the lord's possessions, and a cutting his river into 
little streams, not that himself alone, but that all his relatives 
may drink to be refreshed. Thus the well where the woman 
of Samaria sat, was Jacob's well, and he drank of it ; but so 
did his wives, and his children, and his cattle. So that what 
we call ours, is really ours but for our portion of expense and 
use ; we have so little of it, that our servants have far more ; 
and that which is ours, is nothing but the title, and the care, 
and the trouble of securing and dispensing ; save only that 
God, whose stewards we all are, will call such owners (as thej 
are pleased to call themselves) to strict account for their dis- 
bursements. And by this account, the possession or do- 
minion is but a word, and serves a fancy, or a passion, or a 
vice, but no real end of nature. It is the use and spending 
it that makes a man, to all real purposes of nature, to be 
the owner of it ; and in this the lord and master hath but a 
share. 

2. But, secondly, consider how far short of the whole world 
the greatest prince that ever reigned did come. Alexander, 
that wept because he had no more worlds to conquer, was> in 
his knowledge, deceived and brutish as in his passion : he 
overran much of Asia ; but he could never pass the Ganges, 
and never thrust his sword in the bowels of Europe, and 



THE FOOLISH EXCHANGE. 



159 



knew nothing of America. And "the whole world" began to 
have an appropriate sense ; and was rather put to the Roman 
greatness, as an honourable appellative, than did signify that 
they were lords of the world, who never went beyond Persia, 
Egypt, or Britain. 

But why do I talk of great things in this question of the 
exchange of the soul for the world ? Because it is a real 
bargain which many men (too many, God knows) do make, 
we must consider it as applicable to practice. Every man 
that loses his soul for the purchase of the world, must not 
look to have the portion of a king. How few men are princes; 
and of those that are not born so, how seldom instances are 
found in story of persons, that, by their industry, became so ! 
But we must come far lower yet. Thousands there are that 
damn themselves ; and yet their purchase, at long-running, 
and after a base and weary life spent, is but five hundred 
pounds a year ; nay, it may be, they only cozen an easy person 
out of a good estate, and pay for it at an easy rate, which they 
obtain, by lying, by drinking, by flattery, by force ; and the 
gain is nothing but a thousand pounds in the whole, or, it 
may be, nothing but a convenience. Nay, how many men 
hazard their salvation for an acre of ground, for twenty pound, 
to please a master, to get a small and a kind usage from a 
superior ! These men get but little, though they did not give 
so much for it ; so little, that Epictetus thought the purchase 
dear enough, though you paid nothing for it but flattery and 
observance : "Observance was the price of his meal and he 
paid too dear for one that gave his birthright for it ; but he 
that exchanges his soul for it, knows not the vanity of his 
purchase nor the value of his loss. He that gains the pur- 



i6o 



THE SILENT HOUR, 



chase and spoil of a kingdom, hath got that, which, to ail 
that are placed in heaven, or to a man that were seated in 
the paths of the sun, seems but like a spot in an eye, or a 
mathematical point, so without vastness, that it seems to be 
without dimensions. But he whose purchase is but his 
neighbour's field, or a few unjust acres, hath got that which 
is inconsiderable, below the notice and description of the 
map: for by such hieroglyphical representments, Socrates 
chid the vanity of a proud Athenian. 

3. Although these premises may suffice to show that the 
supposed purchase is but vain, and that all which men use 
really to obtain, is less than trifles ; yet even the possession 
of it, whatsoever it be, is not mere and unmixed, but allayed 
with sorrow and uneasiness ; the gain hath but enlarged his 
appetite, and, like a draught to an hydropic person, hath en- 
raged his thirst ; and still that which he hath not is infinitely 
bigger than what he hath, since the first enlargement of his 
purchase was not to satisfy necessity, but his passion, his 
lust or his avarice, his pride or his revenge. These things 
cease not by their fuel ; but their flames grow bigger, and 
the capacities are stretched, and they want more than they 
did at first. For who wants most, he that wants five pounds, 
or he that wants five thousand? And supposing a man 
naturally supported and provided for, in the dispensations of 
nature there is no difference, but that the poor hath enough 
to fill his belly, and the rich man can never have enough to 
fill his eye. The poor man's wants are no greater than what 
may be supplied by charity ; and the rich man's wants are 
so big that none but princes can relieve them ; and they are 
left to all the temptations of great vices and huge cares to 
make their reparations. 



THE FO OLISH EXCHA NGE. 1 6 1 



If the greatness of the world's possessions produce such 
fruits, vexation, and care, and want ; the ambitious requiring 
of great estates is but like the selling of a fountain to buy a 
fever, a parting with content to buy necessity, and the pur- 
chase of an unhandsome condition at the price of infelicity. 

4, He that enjoys a great portion of this world, hath most 
commonly the allay of some great cross, which, although 
sometimes God designs in mercy, to wean his affections from 
the world, and for the abstracting them from sordid ad- 
herences and cohabitation, to make his eyes like stars, to fix 
them in the orbs of heaven and the regions of felicity, yet 
they are an inseparable appendant and condition of humanity, 
Solomon observed the vanity of some persons that heaped 
up great riches for their heirs, and yet " knew not whether a 
wise man or a fool should possess them ; this is a great evil 
under the sun." And if we observe the great crosses many 
times God permits in great families, as discontent in mar- 
riages, artificial or natural bastardies, a society of man and 
wife like the conjunction of two politics, full of state and 
ceremony and design, but empty of those sweet caresses, 
and natural hearty complications and endearments, usual in 
meaner and innocent persons : the perpetual sickness, fulness 
of diet, fear of dying, the abuse of flatterers, the trouble and 
noise of company, the tedious ofnciousness of impertinent 
and ceremonious visits, the declension of estate, the sadness 
of spirit, the notoriousness of those dishonours which the 
meanness of lower persons conceals, but their eminency 
makes as visible as the spots in the moon's face ; we shall 
find him to be most happy that hath most of wisdom and 

M 



162 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



least of the world, because he only hath the least danger and 
the most security. 

5. And lastly, his soul so gets nothing that wins all this 
world, if he loses his soul, that it is ten to one but he that 
gets the one, therefore shall lose the other; for to a gieat 
and opulent fortune, sin is so adherent and insinuating, 
that it comes to him in the nature of civility. It is a sad 
sight to see a great personage undertake an action passion- 
ately and on great interest ; and let him manage it as indis- 
creetly, let the whole design be unjust, let it be acted with all 
the malice and impotency in the world, he shall have enow 
to tell him that he proceeds wisely enough, to be servants of 
his interest and promoters of his sin, instruments of his 
malice, and actors of his revenge. But which of all his re- 
latives shall dare to tell him of his indiscretion, of his rage, 
and of his folly ? He had need be a bold man and a severe 
person that shall tell him of his danger, and that he is in a 
direct progress towards hell. And indeed such personages 
have been so long nourished up in softness, flattery, and 
effeminacy, that too often themselves are impatient of a 
monitor, and think the charity and duty of a modest repre- 
hension to be a rudeness and incivility. That prince is a 
wise man that loves to have it otherwise ; and, certainly, it 
is a strange civility and dutifulness in friends and relatives 
to suffer him to go to hell uncontrolled, rather than to seem 
unmannerly towards a great sinner. But, certainly, this is 
none of the least infelicities of them who are lords of the 
world and masters of great possessions. 

I omit to speak of the habitual intemperance which is too 
commonly annexed to festival and delicious tables, where 



THE FOOLISH EXCHANGE. 163 

there is no other measure or restraint upon the appetite but 
its fulness and satiety, and when it cannot or dare not eat 
more. Oftentimes it happens that the intemperance of a 
poor table is more temperate and hath less of luxury in it 
than the temperance of a rich. To this are consequent all 
the evil accidents and effects of fulness, pride, lust, wanton- 
ness, softnesses of disposition, and dissolution of manners, 
huge talking, imperiousness, despite and contempt of poor 
persons ; and, at the best, it is a great temptation for a man 
to have in his power whatsoever he can have in its sensual 
desires. Who then shall check his voracity, or calm his 
revenge, or allay his pride, or mortify his lust, or humble his 
spirit ? It is like as when a lustful young and tempted per- 
son lives perpetually with his amorous and delicious mistress: 
if he escapes burning, that is inflamed from within, and set 
on fire from without, it is a greater miracle than the escaping 
from the flames of the furnace by the three children of the 
captivity. And just such a thing is the possession of the 
world ; it furnishes us with the abilities to sin and opportu- 
nities of ruin, and it makes us to dwell with poisons, and 
dangers, and enemies. 

And although the grace of God is sufficient to great per- 
sonages and masters of the world, and that it is possible for 
a young man to be tied on a bed of flowers, and fastened by 
the arms and band of a courtesan, and tempted wantonly, 
and yet to escape the danger and the crime, and to triumph 
gloriously (for so St. Jerome reports of a son of the king of 
Nicomedia): and riches and a free fortune are designed by 
God to be a mercy, and an opportunity of doing noble 
things, and excellent charity, and exact justice, and to pro- 



i6 4 



THE SILENT HOUR, 



tect innocence, and to defend oppressed people ; yet it is a 
mercy mixed with much danger, yea, it is like the present of 
a whole vintage to a man in a hectic fever ; he will be 
shrewdly tempted to drink of it, and if he does, he is in- 
flamed, and may chance to die with the kindness. Happy 
are those persons who use the world and abuse it not ; who 
possess a part of it, and love it for no other ends but for ne- 
cessities of nature and conveniences of person, and discharge 
of ail their duty and the offices of religion, and charity to 
Christ and all Christ's members. But since he that hath all 
the world cannot command nature to do him one office ex- 
traordinary, and enjoys the best part but in common with 
the poorest man in the world, and can use no more of it but 
according to a limited and a very narrow capacity; and what- 
soever he can use or possess, cannot outweigh the present 
pressure of a sharp disease, nor can it at all give him 
content, without which there can be nothing of felicity; since 
a prince, in the matter of using the world, differs nothing 
from his subjects, but in mere accidents and circumstances, 
and yet these very many trifling differences are not to be 
obtained but by so much labour and care, so great expense 
of time and trouble, that the possession will not pay thus 
much of the price : and after all this, the man may die 
two hours after he hath made his troublesome and expensive 
purchase, and is certain not to enjoy it long : add to this 
last, that most men get so little of the world, that it is al- 
together of a trifling and inconsiderable interest ; that they 
who have the most of this world, have the most of that but 
in title and in supreme rights and reserved privileges, the 
real use descending on others to more substantial purposes ; 



THE FOOLISH EXCHANGE. 165 

that the possession of this trifle is mixed with sorrow on 
other accidents, and is allayed with fear; and that the great- 
ness of men's possessions increases their thirst, and enlarges 
their wants, by swelling their capacity; and, above all, is of 
so great danger to a man's virtue, that a great fortune and a 
very great virtue are not always observed to grow together : 
—he that observes all this (and much more he may observe), 
will see that he that gains the whole world, hath made no 
such great bargain of it, although he had it for nothing but 
the necessary unavoidable troubles in getting it. But how 
great a folly is it to buy' so great a trouble, so great a vanity, 
with the loss of our precious souls, remains to be considered 
in the following parts of the text. 



THE FOOLISH EXCHANGE. 



Part II. 

ND lose his own soul? or, what shall a man 
give in exchange for his soul?" — And now the 
question is finally stated, and the dispute is con- 
cerning the sum of affairs. 
And, therefore, when the soul is at a stake, not for its tem- 
poral, but for its eternal interest, it is not good to be hasty in 
determining, without taking just measures of the exchange. 
Solomon had the good things of the world actually in posses- 
sion ; and he tried them at the touchstone of prudence and 
natural value, and found them allayed with vanity and im- 
perfection ; and we see them " weighed in the balance of the 
sanctuary", and, tried by the touchstone of the Spirit, find 
them not only light and unprofitable, but pungent and dolor- 
ous. But now we are to consider what it is that men part 
with and lose, when, with passion and impotency they get 
the world ; and that will present the bargain to be a huge in- 
felicity. And this I observe to be intimated in the word 
" lose". For he that gives gold for cloth, or precious stones 
for bread, serves his needs of nature, and loses nothing by 
it ; and the merchant that found a pearl of great price, and 
sold all that he had to make the purchase of it, made a good 




THE FOOLISH EXCHANGE. 



167 



venture, he was no loser : but here the case was otherwise ; 
when a man gains the whole world, and his soul goes in the 
exchange, he hath not done like a merchant, but like a child 
or prodigal ; he hath given himself away, he hath lost all 
that can distinguish him from a slave or a miserable person, 
he loses his soul in the exchange. For the soul of a man all 
the world cannot be a just price, — a man may lose it or 
throw it away, but he can never make a good exchange when 
he parts with this jewel : and therefore our blessed Saviour 
rarely well expresses it by ^-qikiovv, which is fully opposed to 
KepSos, " gain" : it is such an ill market a man makes, as if he 
should proclaim his riches and goods vendible for a garland 
of thistles decked and trimmed up with the stinking poppy. 

But we shall better understand the nature of this bargain 
if we consider the soul that is exchanged. 

The soul is all that whereby we may be, and without which 
we cannot be, happy. It is not the eye that sees the beauties 
of the heaven, nor the ear that hears the sweetness of music, 
or the glad tidings of a prosperous accident ; but the soul 
that perceives all the relishes of sensual and intellectual per- 
fections ; and the more noble and excellent the soul is, the 
greater and more savoury are its perceptions. And, if a 
child beholds the rich ermine, or the diamonds of a starry 
night, or the order of the world, or hears the discourses of 
an apostle, because he makes no reflex acts on himself, and 
sees not that he sees, he can have but the pleasure of a fool, 
or the deliciousness of a mule- But, although the reflection 
of its own acts be a rare instrument of pleasure or pain re- 
spectively, yet the soul's excellency is, on the same reason, 
not perceived by us, by which the sapidness of pleasant 



1 68 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



things of nature are not understood by a child, even because 
the soul cannot reflect far enough. For as the sun, which is 
the fountain of light and heat, makes violent and direct 
emissions of his rays from himself, but he reflects them no 
farther than to the bottom of a cloud, or the lowest imaginary 
circle of the middle region, and therefore receives not a du- 
plicate of his own heat ; so is the soul of man : it reflects on 
its own inferior actions of particular sense or general under- 
standing ; but because it knows little of its own nature, the 
manners of volition, the immediate instruments of under- 
standing, the way how it comes to meditate, and cannot dis- 
cern how a sudden thought arrives, or the solution of a doubt 
not depending on preceding premises ; therefore about half its 
pleasures are abated, and its own worth less understood, — and 
possibly it is the better it is so. If the elephant knew his 
strength, or the horse the vigorousness of his own spirit, they 
would be as rebellious against their rules as unreasonable 
men against government ; nay, the angels themselves, be- 
cause their light reflected home to their orbs, and they un- 
derstood all the secrets of their own perfection, they grew 
vertiginous, and fell from the battlements of heaven. But 
the excellency of a human soul shall then be truly under- 
stood, when the reflection will make no distraction of our 
faculties, nor enkindle any irregular fires, when we may un- 
derstand ourselves without danger. 

In the mean, this consideration is gone high enough, when 
we understand the soul of a man to be so excellently perfect, 
that we cannot understand how excellently perfect it is ; that 
being the best way of expressing our conceptions of God 
himself. And therefore I shall not need, by distinct dis- 



THE FOOLISH EXCHANGE. 169 



courses, to represent that the will of man is the last resort 
and sanctuary of true pleasure, which, in its formality, can 
be nothing else but a conformity of possession or of being to 
the will : that the understanding, being the channel and con- 
veyance of the noblest perceptions, feeds on pleasures in all 
its proportionate acts, and unless it be disturbed by inter- 
vening sins and remembrances derived hence, keeps a per- 
petual festival ; that the passions are every of them fitted 
with an object, in which they rest as in their centre ; that 
they have such delight in these their proper objects, that too 
often they venture a damnation rather than quit their interest 
and possession. But yet from these considerations it would 
follow that, to lose a soul, which is designed to be an im- 
mense sea of pleasure, even in its natural capacities, is to 
lose all that whereby a man can possibly be, or be supposed, 
happy. And so much the rather is this understood to be an 
insupportable calamity, because losing a soul in this sense is 
not a mere privation of those felicities, of which a soul is 
naturally designed to be a partaker, but it is an investing it 
with contrary objects, and cross effects, and dolorous percep- 
tions : for the will, if it misses its desires, is afflicted ; and 
the understanding, when it ceases to be ennobled with ex- 
cellent things, is made ignorant as a swine, dull as the foot 
of a rock ; and the affections are in the destitution of their 
perfective actions made tumultuous, vexed and discomposed 
to the height of rage and violence. But this is but the 
apxh wStVoj^, " the beginning of those throes", which end not 
but in eternal infelicity. 

Secondly, if we consider the price that the Son of God paid 
for the redemption of a soul, we shall better estimate of it, 



VJO 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



than from the weak discourses of our imperfect and unlearned 
philosophy. Not the spoil of rich provinces, not the estimate 
of kingdoms, not the price of Cleopatra's draught, nor any 
thing that was corruptible or perishing ; for that which could 
not one minute retard the term of its own natural dissolution, 
could not be a price for the redemption of one perishing soul. 
And if we list but to remember, and then consider, that a 
miserable, lost, and accursed soul does so infinitely under- 
value and disrelish all the goods and riches that this world 
dotes on, that he hath no more gust in them, or pleasure, 
than the fox hath in eating a turf ; that, if he could be ima- 
gined to be the lord of ten thousand worlds, he would give 
them all for any shadow of hope of a possibility of returning 
to life again ; that Dives in hell would have willingly gone 
on embassy to his father's house, that he might have been 
quit a little from his flames, and on that condition would 
have given Lazarus the fee-simple of all his temporal pos- 
sessions, though he had once denied to relieve him with the 
superfluities of his table ; we shall soon confess that a mo- 
ment of time is no good exchange for an eternity of duration; 
and a light unprofitable possession is not to be put in the 
balance against a soul, which is the glory of the creation ; a 
soul, with whom God hath made a contract, and contracted 
excellent relations ; it being one of God's appellatives, that 
He "is the Lover of souls." 

When God made a soul, it was only Faciamus Jtominem ad 
imaginem nostram. He spake the word, and it was done. 
But when man had lost this soul which the Spirit of God 
breathed into him, it was not so soon recovered. It is like 
the resurrection which hath troubled the faith of many, who 



THE FOOLISH EXCHANGE. 171 



are more apt to believe that God made a man from nothing, 
than that He can return a man from dust and corruption. 
Rut for this resurrection of the soul, for the reimplacing the 
divine image, for the rescuing it from the devil's power, for 
the re-entitling it to the kingdoms of grace and glory, God did 
a greater work than the creation; He was fain to contract 
divinity to a span, to send a person to die for us, who, of him- 
self, could not die, and was constrained to use rare and mys- 
terious arts to make him capable of dying; He prepared a 
person instrumental to His purpose, by sending His Son from 
His own bosom, a person both God and man, an enigma to 
all nations and to all sciences ; one that ruled over all the 
angels, that walked on the pavements of heaven, whose feet 
were clothed with stars, whose eyes were brighter than the 
sun, whose voice is louder than thunder, whose understanding 
is larger than that infinite space, which we imagine in the 
uncircumscribed distance beyond the first orb of heaven ; a 
person to whom felicity was as essential as life to God : this 
was the only person that was designed, in the eternal decrees 
of the divine predestination, to pay the price of a soul, to 
ransom us from death ; less than this person could not do it. 
For although a soul in its essence is finite, yet there were 
many infinites which were incident and annexed to the con- 
dition of lost souls. For all which because provision was to 
be made, nothing less than an infinite excellence could satisfy 
for a soul who was lost to infinite and eternal ages, who was 
to be afflicted with insupportable and undetermined, that is, 
next to infinite pains ; who was to bear the load of an infinite 
anger from the provocation of an eternal God. And yet if it 
be possible that infinite can receive degrees, this is but one- 



172 THE SILENT HOUR, 

half of the abyss, and I think the lesser. For that this per- 
son, who was God eternal, should be lessened in all its ap- 
pearances to a span, to the little dimensions of a man ; and 
that he should really become very contemptibly little, al- 
though, at the same time, he was infinitely and unalterably 
great ; that is, essential, natural, and necessary felicity should 
turn into an intolerable, violent, and immense calamity to his 
person ; that this great God should not be admitted to pay 
the price of our redemption, unless He would suffer that horrid 
misery, which that lost soul should suffer ; as it represents 
the glories of his goodness, who used such rare and admirable 
instruments in actuating the designs of His mercy, so it shows 
our condition to have been very desperate, and our loss in- 
valuable. 

A soul in God's account is valued at the price of the blood, 
and shame, and tortures of the Son of God; and yet we throw 
it away for the exchange of sins that a man naturally is 
ashamed to own; we lose it for the pleasure, the sottish 
beastly pleasure of a night. I need not say, we lose our soul 
to save our lives ; for, though that was our blessed Saviour's 
instance of the great unreasonableness of men, who by 
"saving their lives, lose them," that is, in the great account of 
doomsday ; though this, I say, be extremely unreasonable, 
yet there is something to be pretended in the bargain ; nothing 
to excuse him with God, but something in the accounts of 
timorous men : but to lose our souls with swearing, that un- 
profitable, dishonourable, and unpleasant vice ; to lose our 
souls with disobedience or rebellion, a vice that brings a curse 
and danger all the way in this life ; to lose our souls with 
drunkenness, a vice which is painful and sickly in the very 



THE FOOLISH EXCHANGE. 



173 



acting it, which hastens our damnation by shortening our 
lives ; are instances fit to be put in the stories of fools and 
madmen. And all vice is a degree of the same unreasonable- 
ness ; the most splendid temptation being nothing but a 
pretty well-weaved fallacy, a mere trick, a sophism, and a 
cheating and abusing the understanding. But that which I 
consider here is, that it is an affront and contradiction to the 
wisdom of God, that we should so slight and undervalue a 
soul, in which our interest is so concerned ; a soul, which He 
who made it, and who delighted not to see it lost, did account 
a fit purchase to be made by the exchange of His Son, the 
eternal Son of God. To which also I add this additional 
account, that a soul is so greatly valued by God, that we are 
not to venture the loss of it to save all the world. For, there- 
fore, whosoever should commit a sin to save kingdoms from 
perishing ; or, if the case should be put, that all the good men, 
and good causes, and good things in this world, were to be 
destroyed by tyranny, and it were in our power by perjury to 
save all these ; that doing this sin would be so far from hal- 
lowing the crime, that it were to offer to God a sacrifice of 
what He most hates, and to serve Him with swine's blood ; 
and the rescuing all these from a tyrant, or a hangman, could 
not be pleasing to God on those terms, because a soul is lost 
by it, which is in itself a greater loss and misery than all the 
evils in the world put together can outbalance, and a loss of 
that thing for which Christ gave His blood a price. Perse- 
cutions and temporal death in holy men, and in a just cause, 
are but seeming evils, and, therefore, not to be bought off 
with the loss of a soul, which is a real, but an intolerable 
calamity. And if God, for His own sake, would not have all 



174 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



the world saved by sin, that is, by the hazarding of a soul, we 
should do well, for our own sakes, not to lose a soul for trifles, 
for things that make us here to be miserable, and even here 
also to be ashamed. 

But it may be, some natures, or some understandings care 
not for all this ; therefore, I proceed to the third and most 
material consideration as to us, and I consider what is to lose 
a soul, which Hierocles thus explicates: "An immortal sub- 
stance can die, not by ceasing to be, but by losing all being 
well," by becoming miserable. And it is remarkable, when 
our blessed Saviour gave us caution that we should "not fear 
them that can kill the body only, but fear Him", He says not 
that can kill the soul, but " that is able to destroy the body and 
soul in hell" {Matt, xix, 28) ; which word signifieth not "death," 
but "tortures." For some have chosen death for sanctuary, 
and fled to it to avoid intolerable shame, to give a period to 
the sense of a sharp grief, or to cure the earthquakes of fear ; 
and the damned perishing souls shall wish for death with a 
desire impatient as their calamity ; but this shall be denied 
them, because death were a deliverance, a mercy, and a 
pleasure, of which these miserable persons must despair for 
ever. 

I shall not need to represent to your considerations those 
expressions of Scripture, which the Holy Ghost hath set down 
to represent to our capacities the greatness of this perishing, 
choosing such circumstances of character as were then usual 
in the world, and which are dreadful to our understanding as 
anything ; "hell-fire" is the common expression ; for the 
eastern nations accounted burnings the greatest of these miser- 
able punishments, and burning malefactors was frequent. 



THE FOOLISH EXCHANGE. 175 

"Brimstone and fire," so St. John [Revel, xiv, 10) calls the state 
of punishment, "prepared for the devil and all his servants" ; 
he added the circumstance of brimstone, for, by this time, the 
devil had taught the world more ingenious pains, and himself 
was newly escaped out of boiling oil and brimstone, and such 
bituminous matter ; and the Spirit of God knew right well the 
worst expression was not bad enough. 2k6tos i*d>Tepos y so our 
blessed Saviour calls it, "the outer darkness" ; that is, not 
only an abjection from the beatific regions, where God, and 
His angels, and His saints dwell for ever ; but then there is a 
positive state of misery expressed by darkness, as two 
apostles, St. Peter and St. Jude, call it, "the blackness of 
darkness for ever." In which, although it is certain that God, 
whose justice there rules, will inflict but just so much as our 
sins deserve, and not superadd degrees of undeserved misery, 
as He does to the saints of glory (for God gives to blessed 
souls in heaven more, infinitely more, than all their good 
works could possibly deserve ; and, therefore, their glory is 
infinitely bigger glory than the pains of hell are great pains), 
yet because God's justice in hell rules alone, without the allays 
and sweeter abatements of mercy, they shall have pure and 
unmingled misery ; no pleasant thought to refresh their 
weariness, no comfort in another accident to alleviate their 
pressures, no waters to cool their flames. But because when 
there is a great calamity on a man, every such man thinks 
himself the most miserable ; and though there are great de- 
grees of pain in hell, yet there are none perceived by Him that 
thinks he suffers the greatest : it follows, that every man that 
loses his soul in this darkness, is miserable beyond all those 



176 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



expressions, which the tortures of this world could furnish to 
the writers of the holy Scripture. 

But I shall choose to represent this consideration in that 
expression of our blessed Saviour, Mark ix, 44, which himself 
took out of the prophet Isaiah lxvi, 24, "Where the worm 
dieth not, and the fire is not quenched." This is the uvvrtXtias 
ipilfiaais spoken of by Daniel the prophet : for although this 
expression was a prediction of that horrid calamity and ab- 
scission of the Jewish nation, when God poured out a full 
phial of his wrath on the crucifiers of His Son, and that this, 
which was the greatest calamity which ever did, or ever shall, 
happen to a nation, Christ, with great reason, took to describe 
the calamity of accursed souls, as being the greatest instance 
to signify the greatest torment ; yet we must observ e that the 
difference of each state makes the same words in the several 
cases to be of infinite distinction. The worm stuck close to 
the Jewish nation, and the fire of God's wrath flamed out till 
they were consumed with a great and unheard-of destruction, 
till many millions did die accursedly, and the small remnant 
became vagabonds, and were reserved, like broken pieces after 
a storm, to show the greatness of the storm and misery of the 
shipwreck : but then this being translated to signify the state 
of accursed souls, whose dying is a continual perishing, who 
cannot cease to be, it must mean an eternity of duration, in a 
proper and natural signification. 

And that we may understand it fully, observe the place in 
Isaiah xxxiv, 8, etc. The prophet prophesies of the great de- 
struction of Jerusalem for all her great iniquities : " It is the 
day of the Lord's vengeance, and the year of recompenses for 
the controversy of Sion. And the streams thereof shall be 



THE FOOLISH EXCHANGE. 



177 



turned into pitch, and the dust thereof into brimstone, and 
the land thereof shall become burning pitch. It shall not be 
quenched night or day, the smoke thereof shall go up for 
ever ; from generation to generation it shall lie waste : none 
shall pass through it, for ever and ever." This is the final 
destruction of the nation ; but this destruction shall have an 
end, because the nation shall end, and the anger also shall 
end in its own period, even then when God shall call the 
Jews into the common inheritance with the Gentiles, and all 
a become the sons of God." And this also was the period of 
their " worm" as it is of their " fire", the fire of the divine 
vengeance on the nation ; which was not to be extinguished 
till they were destroyed, as we see it come to pass. And thus, 
also, in St. Jude, " the angels who kept not their first state" 
are said to be " reserved" by God " in everlasting chains 
under darkness" ; which word, " everlasting", signifies not 
absolutely to eternity, but to the utmost end of that period ; 
for so it follows, "unto the judgment of the great day"; that 
"everlasting" lasts no longer. And in verse 7, the word 
" eternal" is just so used. The men of " Sodom and Gomor- 
rah are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of 
eternal fire" ; that is, of a fire which burned till they were 
quite destroyed, and the cities and the country with an irre- 
parable ruin, never to be rebuilt and reinhabited as long as 
this world continues. The effect of which observation is 
this :— 

That these words " for ever, — everlasting, — eternal, — the 
never-dying worm, — the fire unquenchable", being words bor- 
rowed by our blessed Saviour and his apostles from the style 
of the Old Testament, must have a signification just propor- 

N 



i/3 



THE SIZE XT HOUR. 



tionable to the state in which they signify ; so that as this 
worm, when it signifies a temporal infliction, means a worm 
that never ceases giving torment till the body is consumed : 
when it is translated to an immortal state, it must signify as 
much in that proportion ; that " eternal", that " everlasting', 
hath no end at all ; because the soul cannot be killed in the 
natural sense, but is made miserable and perishing for ever ; 
that is, " the worm shall not die" so long as the soul shall be 
unconsumed ; " the fire shall not be quenched" till the period 
of an immortal nature comes. And that this shall be abso- 
lutely for ever, without any restriction, appears unanswerable 
in this, because the same " for ever" that is for the blessed 
souls, the same " for ever" is for the accursed souls ; but the 
blessed souls, " that die in the Lord, henceforth shall die no 
more, death hath no power over them ; for death is destroyed, 
it is swallowed up in victory", saith St. Paul; and "there shall 
be no more death", saith St. John {Rev. xxi, 4). So that be- 
cause " for ever" hath no end, till the thing or the duration 
itself have end, in the same sense in which the saints and 
angels " give glory to God for ever", in the same sense the 
lost souls shall suffer the evils of their sad inheritance : and 
since, after this death of nature, which is a separation of 
soul and body, there remains no more death, but this second 
death, this eternal perishing of miserable accursed souls, 
whose duration must be eternal ; it follows, that " the worm 
of conscience", and " the unquenchable fire" of hell, have no 
period at all, but shall last as long as God lasts, or the mea- 
sures of a proper eternity ; that they who provoke God to 
wrath by their base, unreasonable, and sottish practices, may 
know what their portion shall be in the everlasting habita- 



THE FOOLISH EXCHANGE, 179 



tions. And yet, suppose that Origen's opinion had been true, 
and that accursed souls should have ease, and a period to 
their tortures after a thousand years ; I pray let it be con- 
sidered, whether it be not a great madness to choose the 
pleasures or the wealth of a few years here, with trouble, 
with danger, with uncertainty, with labour, with intervals of 
' sickness ; and for this to endure the flames of hell for a 
thousand years together The pleasures of the world no 
man can have for a hundred years ; and no man hath plea- 
sure for a hundred days together, but he hath some trouble 
intervening, or at least a weariness and a loathing of the 
pleasure : and therefore to endure insufferable calamities, 
suppose it be for a hundred years, without any interruption, 
without so much comfort as the light of a small candle, or 
a drop of w^ater amounts to in a fever, is a bargain to be 
made by no man that loves himself, or is not in love with 
infinite affliction. 

If a man were condemned but to lie still, or to lie in bed 
in one posture without turning, for seven years together, 
would he not buy it off with the loss of all his estate? If a 
man were to be put on the rack for every day for three 
months together (suppose him able to live so long), what 
would not he do to be quit of his torture ? Would any man 
curse the king to his face, if he were sure to have both his 
hands burnt off, and to be tormented with torments three 
years together ? Would any man in his wits accept of a 
hundred pounds a-year for forty years, if he were sure to be 
tormented in the fire for the next hundred years together 
without intermission ? Think, then, what a thousand years 
signify ; ten ages, the age of two empires. But this account. 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



I must tell you, is infinitely short, though I thus discourse to 
you how great fools wicked men are, though this opinion should 
be true. A goodly comfort, surely, that for two or three 
years' sottish pleasure, a man shall be infinitely tormented but 
for a thousand years ! But then, when we cast up the minutes, 
and years, and ages of eternity, the consideration itself is a 
great hell to those persons who, by their evil lives, are con- 
signed to such sad and miserable portions. 

A thousand years is a long while to be in torment : we 
find a fever of one-and-twenty days to be like an age in 
length ; but when the duration of an intolerable misery is 
for ever in the height, and for ever beginning, and ten thou- 
sand years have spent no part of its term, but it makes a 
perpetual efflux, and is like the centre of a circle, which ever 
transmits lines to the circumference : this is a consideration 
so sad, that the horror of it, and the reflection on its abode 
and duration, make a great part of the hell : for hell could 
not be hell without the despair of accursed souls ; for any 
hope were a refreshment, and a drop of water, which would 
help to allay those flames, which, as they burn intolerably, so 
they must burn for ever. 

And I desire you to consider, that although the Scripture 
uses the word "fire" to express the torments of accursed 
souls, yet fire can no more equal the pangs of hell than it 
can torment an immaterial substance ; the pains of perishing 
souls being as much more afflictive than the smart of fire, as 
the smart of fire is troublesome beyond the softness of Per- 
sian carpets, or the sensuality of the Asian luxury. For the 
pains of hell, and the perishing or losing the soul, is to suffer 
the wrath of God : " our God is a consuming fire", that is, 



THE FO OLISH EXCHA NGE. 1 8 r 



the fire of hell. When God takes away all comfort from us, 
nothing to support our spirit is left us ; when sorrow is our 
food and tears our drink ; when it is eternal night, without 
sun, or star, or lamp, or sleep ; when we burn with fire with- 
out light, that is, are laden with sadness without remedy, or 
hope of ease ; and that this wrath is to be expressed and to 
fall on us in spiritual, immaterial, but most accursed, most 
pungent, and dolorous emanations ; then we feel what it is 
to lose a soul. 

We may guess at it by the terrors of a guilty conscience, 
those verbera et laniatus, those secret " lashings and whips"' 
of the exterminating angel, those thorns in the soul, when a 
man is haunted by an evil spirit ; those butcheries — which 
the soul of a tyrant, or a violent or a vicious person, when he 
falls into fear or any calamity, does feel — are the infinite ar- 
guments, that hell — which is the consummation of the tor- 
ment of conscience, just as manhood is the consummation of 
infancy, or as glory is the perfection of grace — is an affliction 
greater than the bulk of heaven and earth ; for there it is 
that God pours out the treasures of his wrath, and empties 
the whole magazine of thunderbolts, and all the armory of 
God is employed, not in the chastising, but in the tormenting, 
of a perishing soul. Lucian brings in Rhadamanthus, telling 
the poor wandering souls on the banks of Elysium, " For every 
wickedness that any man commits in his life, when he comes 
to hell, he hath stamped on his soul an invisible brand" and 
mark of torment, and this begins here, and is not cancelled 
by death, but there is enlarged by the greatness of infinite, 
and the abodes of eternity. How great these torments of 
conscience are here, let any man imagine that can but under- 



182 



THE SILENT HOUR, 



stand what despair means ; despair on just reason : let it be 
what it will, no misery can be greater than despair. And be- 
cause I hope none here have felt those horrors to an evil 
conscience which are consignations to eternity, you may 
please to learn it by your own reason, or else by the sad in- 
stances of story. It is reported of Petrus Ilosuanus,* a Polo- 
nian schoolmaster, that having read some ill-managed dis- 
courses of absolute decrees and divine reprobation, he began 
to be fantastic and melancholic, and apprehensive that he 
might be one of those many whom God had decreed for hell 
from all eternity. From possible to probable, from probable 
to certain, the temptation soon carried him : and when he 
once began to believe himself to be a person inevitably 
perishing, it is not possible to understand perfectly what in- 
finite fears, and agonies, and despairs, what tremblings, what 
horrors, what confusion and amazement, the poor man felt 
within him, to consider that he was to be tormented ex- 
tremely, without remedy, even to eternal ages. This, in a 
short continuance, grew insufferable, and prevailed on him 
so far, that he hanged himself, and left an account of it 
to this purpose in writing in his study : " I am gone from 
hence to the flames of hell, and have forced my way thither, 
being impatient to try what those great torments are, which 
here I have feared with an insupportable amazement." This 
instance may suffice to show what it is to lose a soul. 

Although Homer was pleased to compliment the beauty 

# A similar story is told of Francis Spira, who imagined that he 
had committed the unpardonable sin : vide A Relation of the feare- 
firfl estate of Francis Spira in the yeare 1 548, after he had turned 
apostate from the Protestant church : 1637. This book has the im« 
primatur of the Bishop of London. 



THE FOOLISH EXCHANGE. 



of Helena to such a height, as to say, "it was a sufficient 
price for all the evils which the Greeks and Trojans suf- 
fered for ten years" ; yet it was a more reasonable con- 
jecture of Herodotus, that, during the ten years' siege of 
Troy, Helena, for whom the Greeks fought, was in Egypt, 
not in the city; because it was unimaginable but the Trojans 
would have thrown her over the walls, rather than, for the 
sake of such a trifle, have endured so great calamities. We 
are more sottish than the Trojans, if we retain our He- 
lena, any one beloved lust, a painted devil, any sugared tempt- 
ation, with, not the hazard, but the certainty of having such 
horrid miseries, such invaluable losses. And certainly, it is 
a strange stupidity of spirit that can sleep in the midst of 
such thunder ; when God speaks from heaven with his loudest 
voice, and draws aside his curtain, and shows his arsenal 
and his armory, full of arrows steeled with wrath, headed 
and pointed, and hardened with vengeance, still to snatch at 
those arrows, if they come but in the retinue of a rich for- 
tune or a vain mistress, if they wait but on pleasure or profit 
or in the rear of an ambitious design. 

But let us not have such a hardiness against the threats 
and representments of the divine vengeance, as to take the 
little imposts and revenues of the world, and stand in de- 
fiance against God and the fears of hell ; unless we have a 
charm that we can be " invisible to the judge" of heaven and 
earth, and are impregnable against, or are sure we shall be 
insensible of, the miseries of a perishing soul. 

There is a sort of men, who, because they will be vicious 
and atheistical in their lives, have no way to go on with any 
plaisancc and without huge disturbances, but by being also 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



atheistical in their opinions ; and to believe that the story of 
hell is but a bugbear to affright children and fools, easy-be- 
lieving people, to make them soft and apt for government and 
designs of princes. And this is an opinion that befriends 
none but impure and vicious persons. Others there are, that 
believe God to be all mercy, that he forgets his justice ; be- 
lieving that none shall perish with so sad a ruin, if they do 
but at their death-bed ask God forgiveness, and say they are 
sorry, but yet continue their impiety till their house be ready 
to fall : being like the Circassians, whose gentlemen enter 
not in the church till they be threescore years old, that is, in 
effect, till by their age they cannot any longer use rapine ; 
till then they hear service at their windows, dividing unequally 
their life between sin and devotion, dedicating their youth to 
robbery, and their old age to a repentance without restitution. 

Our youth, and our manhood, and old age, are all of them 
due to God, and justice and mercy are to Him equally essen- 
tial ; and as this life is a time of the possibilities of mercy, so 
to them that neglect it, the next world shall be a state of pure 
and unmingled justice. 

Remember the fatal and decretory sentence which God 
hath passed on all mankind : " It is appointed to all men once 
to die, and after death comes judgment." And if any of us 
were certain to die next morning, with what earnestness 
should we pray ! with what hatred should we remember our 
sins ! with what scorn should we look on the licentious plea- 
sures of the world ! Then nothing could be welcome unto us 
but a prayer-book, no company but a comforter and a guide 
of souls, no employment but repentance, no passions but in 
order to religion, no kindness for a lust that hath undone us. 



THE FOOLISH EXCHANGE. 



.85 



And if any of you have been arrested with alarms of death, or 
been in hearty fear of its approach, remember what thoughts 
and designs then possessed you, how precious a soul was then 
in your account, and what then you would give that you had 
despised the world, and done your duty to God and man, and 
lived a holy life. It will come to that again ; and we shall be 
in that condition in which we shall perfectly understand, that 
all the things and pleasures of the world are vain, and unpro- 
fitable, and irksome, and that he only is a wise man who 
secures the interest of his soul, though it be with the loss of 
all this world, and his own life into the bargain. When we 
are to depart this life, to go to strange company and stranger 
places, and to an unknown condition, then a holy conscience 
will be the best security, the best possession ; it will be a 
horror, that every friend we meet shall, with triumph, upbraid 
to us the sottishness of our folly: " Lo, this is the goodly 
change you have made ! you had your good things in your 
life time, and how like you the portion that is reserved to you 
for ever?" The old rabbins, those poets of religion, report of 
Moses, that when the courtiers of Pharaoh were sporting with 
the child Moses, in the chamber of Pharaoh's daughter, they 
presented to his choice an ingot of gold in one hand and a 
coal of fire in the other ; and that the child snatched at the 
coal, thrust it into his mouth, and so singed and parched 
his tongue, that he stammered ever after. And certainly it is 
infinitely more childish in us, for the glittering of the small 
glow-worms and the charcoal of worldly possessions, to swal- 
low the flames of hell greedily in our choice : such a bit will 
produce a worse stammering than Moses had : for so the ac- 
cursed and lost souls have their ugly and horrid dialect ; they 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



roar and blaspheme, blaspheme and roar, for ever. And sup- 
pose God should now, at this instant, send the great archangel 
with his trumpet, to summon all the world to judgment, would 
not all this seem a notorious visible truth, a truth which you 
will then wonder that every man did not lay to his heart and 
preserve there, in actual, pious, and effective consideration ? 
Let the trumpet of God perpetually sound in your ears, Sur- 
gite, mortui, et venite ad judicium : place yourselves, by 
meditation, every day on your death-bed, and remember what 
thoughts shall then possess you, and let such thoughts dwell 
in your understanding for ever, and be the parent of all your 
resolutions and actions. The doctors of the Jews report, that 
when Absalom hanged among the oaks by the hair of the 
head, he seemed to see under him hell gaping wide ready to 
receive him ; and he durst not cut off the hair that entangled 
him, for fear he should fall into the horrid lake, whose portion 
is flames and torment, but chose to protract his miserable life 
a few minutes in that pain of posture, and to abide the stroke 
of his pursuing enemies : his condition was sad when his arts 
of remedy were so vain. 

A condemned man hath but small comfort to stay the sing- 
ing of a long psalm ; it is the case of every vicious person. 
Hell is wide open to every impenitent persevering sinner, to 
every unpurged person. And although God hath lighted His 
candle, and the lantern of His word and clearest revelations 
is held out to us, that we can see hell in its worst colours and 
most horrid representments ; yet we run greedily after, 
baubles, unto that precipice which swallows up the greatest 
part of mankind ; and then only we begin to consider, when 
all consideration is fruitless. 



THE FOOLISH EXCHANGE. 



1 87 



He, therefore, is a huge fool, that heaps up riches, that 
greedily pursues the world, and at the same time (for so it 
must be) "heaps up wrath to himself against the day of 
wrath"; when sickness and death arrest him, then they appear 
unprofitable, and himself extremely miserable ; and if you 
would know how great that misery is, you may take account 
of it by those fearful words and killing rhetoric of Scripture : 
"It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God"; 
and, "Who can dwell with the everlasting burnings ?" That 
is, no patience can abide there one hour, where they must 
dwell for ever. 



HUMILITY. 



HE blatant virtues, in this world at least, get the 
best of it. A right good noisy valour, that will 
call men together and thunder out much rever- 
berative sound, is the one which most excites 
attention, and generally wins the Victoria Cross ; nay. after 
years are gone by, it gets historians to chronicle its deeds and 
to defend it against all comers. A man who has been full of 
harsh words and bloody deeds shall find a chronicler ; but 
he who has lived out his honest, unostentatious life in prayer 
and solitude, surrounding himself with a halo of good deeds, 
and to whom never a day rose wherein he did not put some 
careful guard upon his tongue, check himself in some lawful 
wish, and deny himself some pleasure — he, even he, shall die 
unnoticed and almost unknown. 

''See how the world its veterans rewards, 
A youth of pleasure, an old age of cards," 

sings Pope, with a hearty sneer at the world he admired too 
much. But the world does reward its veterans with such stuff 
as it has on hand. What it can give, it gives. The man who 
advertises himself gets known ; the philanthropist who prints 
his name a thousand times is acknowledged and honoured 
too ; and he who does good by stealthj and blushes to find it 




HUMILITY. 189 

fame, need scarcely hide his face now, for few will ever find 
him out, and perhaps none approve his good deeds, except 
his own conscience and his God. 

Humility is a virtue which for some time has gone generally 
out of fashion ; yet, as in the gayest times there are some 
extraordinary people who will clothe themselves as they like, 
so there are some people who are humble in the midst of 
proud days, when everybody is arrogant and self-assertive, 
The Quakers try in some measure to conform their clothes to 
those of the world. They have left off knee-breeches, and have 
given the brims of their hats a slight curl, but yet in their 
hearts they are faithful to the old form of dress ; and so 
humility, while it sighs at a distance, even because it is so 
neglected, does clothe the soul, and keep it apart and distinct 
from all others, if it only once possesses it. Long ago it cer- 
tainly went out of fashion. Selden one day at his table gave 
about as curt an analysis of all that could be said of it as. we 
shall find anywhere. "Humility," said he, "is a virtue which 
all preach, none practise, and yet everybody is content to 
hear (of). The master thinks it good doctrine for his servant, 
the laity for the clergy, and the clergy for the laity." Yes, but 
the servant too thinks it good doctrine for his master. The 
Radical, sitting down to his well-earned dinner, looks at the 
lord and lady who are passing, and wonders where they got 
such pride from, and grumbles out that if people were a little 
more humble they would be better. The lord in his way be- 
lieves that the mechanic might be more civil ; and so on. 
Whenever our own pride is hurt, we instantly complain of the 
pride of others ; and we are quite right to do so. To see, as 
all of us have seen, some dirty-soulcd little snob, mounted on 



190 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



merely the gold heaps — dust heaps indeed ! — that his father 
has accumulated, stare at and bully worthier men ; to see him 
take the first place in the forum or the church ; to find that 
he becomes a Member of Congress, Parliament, or Senate ; 
that he assumes airs, as if it were simply his own merit that 
placed him where he is, and that he elbows and " shoves away 
the worthy bidden guest," — to see this is galling ; and yet it 
has been seen, is seen, and will be seen for ever. A little 
humility is the only salve that can heal our wounded spirits. 
We are all but dust and ashes ; he too is of Adam's lineage, 
red earth. The pride that boils within him cannot shield him 
from the cold wind, nor cure a cough. He will be pinched 
with the gout or racked with the tooth-ache as much as a 
poor man ; and, moreover, his own pride will make a whip 
for his back ; and your honest face, which may show merely 
a quiet surprise at his want of courtesy, will irritate him be- 
cause it did not veil itself before his pride. 

One who is truly humble would not trouble himself at the 
pride of others, which is always so annoying to people who 
have the slightest tinge of pride. Hence, although true 
humility is so much despised, it should not be so, but rather 
should be admired on account of its rarity. Unfortunately, 
people suspect true humility to be a mere sham, because so 
many people have already put that trick upon them. Quickly 
enough can we assume an humbleness ; but with great diffi- 
culty we clothe our hearts with it, and the imitation is so easy 
a masquerading habit that fools and knaves wear it, and the 
truly humble gets contemned because of the wickedness of 
the rogue. It is an old trick of the stage-player to make a 
villain profess his humility, and "declare that he likes to be 



HUMILITY. 



despised," and at tne same time show a haughtiness of soul, 
or a look proud enough for a czar. It is doubtful whether this 
painting of humbleness is not altogether a caricature. A 
really humble man, says one who knew what he was saying, 
is one who reverences himself, and who knows his own value ; 
hence he looks with a generous admiration on the deeds of 
others, and tries not to detract from the true merit of any 
man. Even humility can have its faults. One does not like 
to see even a dog cringe, and the beaten fawning manner of 
some Indians and Eastern people is sad and touching. Est 
humilitas qucEdam in vitio, there is a possible vicious hum- 
bleness, says Selden : " If a man does not take notice of that 
excellency and perfection which is in himself, how can he be 
thankful to God, who is the author of all excellency and per- 
fection ? Nay, if a man has too mean an opinion of himself, 
it will render him unserviceable both to God and man." That 
is a very wise and deep remark, and people who, like Mrs. 
Gummidge in Dickens's story, give place to perpetual com- 
plaint against themselves, crying out " I am a lone lost widow, 
no one cares for me ; I'm nothing but a burden and a trouble 
to all," make their own words true, and end by becoming a 
very great burden to every one. 

In Caussin's Holy Court, (a delightful and quaint book 
bearing a great family resemblance to certain independent 
Quaker writings, although the work of one of the Jesuit 
fathers, who was confessor to Louis XIII) is a description of 
humility very quaintly put. Humility the author very pro- 
perly brackets with magnanimity, for to be of a great mind 
one must be first of an humble one. "It is", he says, "a 
notorious folly to boast and brave it in apparel, which are the 



192 THE SILENT HOUR. 

plasters of the scars of sin, to wit nakedness ; borrowed 
feathers from all kinds of birds, unpunished thefts." And he 
then goes on to say what a humble, great mind does. If you 
are truly humble, you will necessarily have acts of magnani- 
mity, which are to tender and take great things for the honour 
and glory of God ; for there is not anything so potent as the 
humble who expecteth all his power from heaven. You are 
to drive from you with courage any obstacles which prevent 
you from a good work ; to make little account of all the states 
and dignities of this world ; to enter into it, stay in it, and go 
out of it always with the same countenance ; to take honour 
as a tribute which you are to give to God ; to abide continu- 
ally, both in prosperity and adversity, within yourself ; to re- 
compense a benefit liberally, never to detract, nor to praise 
others, who are deserving, sparingly ; to beg seldom, admire 
nothing lightly, nor complain of any man ; to hold rank 
among great men without vanity, and to humble yourself 
even to your inferiors through charity ; to hate flattery as a 
plague, hypocrisy as a poison ; to do and speak freely what 
is reasonable ; not to remember injuries ; to aim rather at 
honour than profit. 

To exercise humility, therefore, is not anything like being 
humble in the common acceptation, as Dickens has made 
one of his characters, Mr. Uriah Heep. In fact, a general 
profession of lowliness is not required, and is indeed to be 
avoided. Certainly there are persons who seem to think that 
an abnegation of all manliness is required from the truly 
humble ; but a greater mistake was never made. He who 
will condescend to do that which is unworthy of him, has that 
kind of pride which Pope has made immortal in the line — 



HUMILITY, 



€£ Wii that can creep, and pride that licks the dust." 

Plainly speaking, a humble man is to be by no means a 
sneak. He may have some opinion of himself, for, as it would 
be absurd to suppose that the strong man in a show, or the 
giant of the day, does not know that he is strong, or that he 
is tall — so, to presume that Shakspere did not know his 
genius, or that Milton was unaware of his transcendent, har- 
mony, his great knowledge, and his almost universal learning, 
is foolish. When Shakspere says — 

"Not marble, nor the brazen monuments of kings, 
Shall outlive this powerful verse," 

he speaks boldly and almost prophetically, not conceitedly. 
His whole life of unostentatious retirement proves that he was 
a lowly-minded man. Such a mind must have been clothed 
with sweet humility. He who could contemplate the tragic 
essence of things, and could derive therefrom food for philo- 
sophic cheerfulness, must have stooped down low enough to 
see so closely and to learn so much. " What a piece of work 
is man!" he says, and the after reflection shows how truly 
humble the proud boast is; "how noble in reason ! how in- 
finite in faculties! in form, and moving, how express and ad- 
mirable ! in action, how like an angel ! in apprehension, how 
like a God !" And yet man delighted him not, and Denmark 
was a prison ; nay, the world was one. In all his chief plays 
there is an almost superhuman feeling of sadness, of the little- 
ness of things, of the unspeakable difference between the 
creature and the Creator, between finity and infinity, the end- 
able and the endless. There is a legend that the "Tempest" 
was his last work, and that some of the very last lines which 

O 



194 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



ever came from his hand were those which never can be read 
without a feeling of sadness, which, properly corrected, turns 
to true humility. Everything shall have an end — "the cloud- 
capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, the solemn temples, the 
great globe itself shall dissolve ; and he likens man, infinite 
in his faculties though he be, to " such stuff as dreams are 
made of," and his little life is a troublesome dream, "rounded," 
that is ended, bounded, and eased off "by a sleep," as if one 
should fall into a dreamless, sweet sleep, before again 
awakening, after being distressed by a tiresome dream. 
Consonant with these expressions of humility is Shakspere's 
carelessness of his plays, his utter regardlessness of cor- 
rection. "He never blotted out a line," said Ben Jonson : 
"would that he had blotted a thousand !" As it came, so it 
went ; the thoughts arose in that teeming mind, were com- 
mitted to paper, to the mouths of the players, and then to the 
ears of the world — ears which have drunk them in ever since; 
but the great Master cared little for what he had said : having 
sown the seed, he passed on. 

"I will use them" (the players) "according to their desert," 
says Polonius, in reply to Hamlet, who exclaims, "Odd's 
bodikin, man, much better : Use every man after his desert, 
and who shall 'scape whipping !" Certainly not you, who are 
reading, nor I, who am writing. We will not say anything 
about others, because we know not their merits or demerits 
so well as we do our own. When we have arrived at this 
table-land of humility, we shall find that there is some com- 
fort in the acknowledgment. "Will you do so and so, Jane?" 
said a father to his daughter. "No, I won't," she answered ; 
"it is so humiliating." — "I am willing," says a young lady 



HUMILITY. 195 

who wishes to become a companion, "to do anything that is 
not menial." Such determination is valid enough to guard the 
lower against the overweening pride of the higher individual, 
but otherwise it is very foolish. We do menial services to 
ourselves. Can there be a more menial occupation than a 
mother's ? What servant ever condescends to those every- 
day offices which true love will teach us ? An humble thought 
of ourselves will take away any sting that there may be in our 
fortune or our position. Once a year the Pope, in imitation 
of the Lord he serves, washes the feet of pilgrims publicly, 
and with ceremony ; and it is to be wished that kings would 
take example of him in this ; for although there might be, as 
there no doubt is, a great deal of sham in the transaction, it 
would at least teach monarchs the outward humility due to 
poverty, and it might be an outward and visible sign of an 
inward and spiritual grace. Even our Maundy almsgiving, 
an old custom with us, is done by deputy ; but England is so 
given over to veneer, that fine old Christian customs are 
sneered at as hypocritical. Outward humility is better than 
nothing, whereas true humility is, perhaps, the very best gift 
any one can have, for it is the father of gratitude, and the 
constant begetter of content. To a humble man a small for- 
tune seems princely, a poor meal is a feast, the lowest place 
at table suitable, and the dullest weather partakes of the glory 
of a fine day. He is armed in proof against all sneers and 
taunts of men. What to him is the "insolence of office" ? He 
takes that which comes, and thinks everything good enough 
for him. All good people love him, for he is clothed in sweet- 
ness ; he enters into the joys of others, and triumphs in little 
pleasures, whereat the proud man would feel a thousand 



196 



THE SILENT HOUR, 



stings of wounded vanity ; and lastly, by true humility the 
good man makes himself fit company for angels. The proud 
and insolent mind God does not love : the heart must indeed 
be bent low before it comes to him. Well says the Duchess 
to her executioner, Bosola, in Webster's fine play, the 
"Dutchesse of Malfy," when he is about to carry out the 
horrible behest of her brothers and to strangle her as she 
stands, while she wishes to die in an attitude of supplication — 

" Yet stay! heaven gates are not so highly arched 
As princely palaces ; they that enter there 
Must go upon their knees." 



OF A PEACEABLE TEMPER* 



|HY does the duty of living peaceably extend to 
' " all men", that is, why are we bound to bear 
| goodwill, and do good offices, and show civil 
S respects to all men ; and to endeavour that all 
men reciprocally be well affected toward us. For it might with 
some colour of reason be objected, and said, why should I 
be obliged heartily to love those that desperately hate me ; 
to treat them kindly that use me despitefully ; to help them 
that would hinder me ; to relieve them that would plunge 
me into utter distress : to comfort them that delight in my 
affliction ; to be respective to, and tender of, their reputation 
who despise, defame, and reproach me ; to be indulgent and 
favourable to them who are harsh and rigorous in their deal- 
ings with me ; to spare and pardon them who with im- 
placable malice persecute me ? Why should I seek their 
friendship who disdainfully reject mine? why prize their 
favour who scorn mine ? why strive to please them who pur- 
posely offend me ? Or why should I have any regard to men 
void of all faith, goodness, or desert ? And most of all, why 




* If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with 
all men. — Romans xii, 1 8. 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



should I be bound to maintain amicable correspondence 
with those who are professed enemies to piety and virtue, 
who oppugn truth and disturb peace, and countenance vice, 
error, and faction? How can any love, consent of mind, or 
communion of good offices, intercede between persons so 
contrarily disposed ? I answer, they may and ought, and 
that because the obligation to these ordinary performances 
is not grounded on any peculiar respects, special qualifica- 
tions, or singular actions of men (which are contingent and va- 
riable), but on the indefectible score of common humanity. 
We owe them (as the philosopher alleged, when he dispensed 
his alms to an unworthy person) ob t<£ avdpdoircp, a\\a t$ avdnw- 
Tr'ivy not to the men, but to human nature resident in them. 
There be, indeed, divers other sorts of love, in nature and 
object more restrained, built on narrower foundations, and 
requiring more extraordinary acts of duty and respect, not 
competent to all men ; as a love of friendship founded on 
long acquaintance, suitableness of disposition, and frequent 
exchanges of mutual kindness ; a love of gratitude, due to 
the reception of valuable benefits ; a love of esteem, belong- 
ing to persons endued with worth and virtue ; a love of rela- 
tion, resulting from kindred, affinity, neighbourhood, and 
other common engagements. But the love of benevolence 
(which is precedent to these, and more deeply rooted in 
nature, more ancient, more unconfined, and more immutable), 
and the duties mentioned consequent on it, are grounded on 
the natural constitution, necessary properties, and unalterable 
condition of humanity, and are, on several accounts, due 
thereto. 

On account of universal cognation, agreement, and 



BROTHERLY PEACE. 



199 



similitude of nature. "All men naturally are of kin and 
friends to each other", saith Aristotle.* " We are also your 
brethren in the right of nature, our common mother", saith 
Tertullianf of old, in the name of the Christians to the 
heathens. We are but several streams issuing from one pri- 
mitive source, — several branches sprouting from the same 
stock, — several stones hewed out of the same quarry : one 
substance, by miraculous efficacy of the divine benediction 
diffused and multiplied. One element affords us matter, and 
one fire actuates it, kindled at first by the breath of God. 
One blood flows in all our veins ; one nourishment repairs 
our decayed bodies, and one common air refreshes our lan- 
guishing spirits. We are cohabitants of the same earth, 
and fellow-citizens of the same great commonwealth. We 
were all fashioned according to the same original idea (re- 
sembling God, our common Father), all endowed with the 
same faculties, inclinations, and affections ; all conspire in 
the essential and more notable ingredients of our constitu- 
tion, and are only distinguished by some accidental, incon- 
siderable circumstances of age, place, colour, stature, for- 
tune, and the like, in which we differ as much from ourselves 
in successions of time. So that what Aristotle said of a 
friend is applicable to every man ; every man is a\\os avrbs, 
" another ourself" : and he that hates another, detests his 
own most lively picture ; he that harms another, injures his 
own nature ; he that denies relief to another, starves a mem- 
ber of his own body, and withers a branch of his own tree. 
" The merciful man doeth good to his own soul ; but he that 



* 8 Eth. cap. 1. 



f In Apologo 



200 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



is cruel troubleth his own flesh." Neither can any persona! 
demerit of vicious habit, erroneous opinion, enormous prac- 
tice, or signal discourtesy towards us, dissolve these bands ; 
for as no unkindness of a brother can wholly rescind that 
relation, or disoblige us from the duties annexed thereto ; so 
neither on the faults or injuries of any man can we ground a 
total dispensation from the offices of humanity, especially if 
the injuries be not irreparable, nor the faults incurable. 

We are indispensably obliged to these duties, because the 
best of our natural inclinations prompt us to the performance 
of them ; especially those of pity and benignity, which are 
manifestly discernible in all, but most powerful and vigorous 
in the best natures, and which, questionless, by the most 
wise and good Author of our beings, were implanted therein 
both as monitors to direct, and as spurs to incite us to the 
performance of our duty. For the same bowels that, in our 
want of necessary sustenance, do by a lively sense of pain 
inform us thereof, and instigate us to provide against it, do 
in like manner grievously resent the distresses of another, 
and thereby admonish us of our duty, and provoke us to re- 
lieve them. Even the stories of calamities, that in ages long 
since past have happened to persons nowise related to us, 
yea, the fabulous reports of tragical events, do (even against 
the bent of our wills and all resistance of reason) melt our 
hearts with compassion and draw tears from our eyes ; and 
thereby evidently signify that general sympathy which na- 
turally intercedes between all men, since we can neither see, 
nor hear of, nor imagine another's grief, without being afflicted 
ourselves. Antipathies may be natural to wild beasts, but 
to rational creatures they are wholly unnatural. And on the 



BRO THERL Y PEA CE. 



201 



other side, as nature to eating and drinking, and such acts 
requisite to the preservation of our life, hath adjoined a sen- 
sible pleasure and satisfaction, enticing us to, and encouraging 
us in, the performance of them ; so, and doubtless to the 
same end, hath she made relieving the necessities of others, 
and doing good offices to them, to be accompanied with a 
very contentful and delicious relish to the mind of the doer. 
Epicurus, that great master of pleasure, did himself confess 
that to bestow benefits was not only more brave, but more 
pleasant, than to receive them. And certainly no kind of 
actions a man can perform are attended with more pure, 
more perfect ? more savoury delight, than those of beneficence 
are. Since nature, therefore, hath made our neighbour's 
misery our pain, and his content our pleasure, — since with 
indissoluble bands of mutual sympathy she hath concatenated 
our fortunes and affections together, — since by the discipline 
of our sense she instructs us, and by the importunity thereof 
solicits us to the observance of our duty, let us follow her 
wise directions, and conspire with her kindly motions ; let 
us not stifle or weaken by disuse, or contrary practice, but 
by conformable action, cherish and confirm the good in- 
clinations of nature. 

We are obliged to these duties on account of common 
equity. We have all (the most sour and stoical of us all) 
implanted in us a natural ambition, and a desire (which we 
can by no means eradicate) of being beloved and respected 
by all ; and are disposed in our need to demand assistance, 
commiseration of our misfortunes, and relief in our distress, 
of all that are in capacity to afford them, and are apt to be 
vehemently displeased, to think ourselves hardly dealt with, 



202 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



and to complain of cruelty and inhumanity in those that re- 
fuse them to us ; and therefore in all reason and equity we 
should readily pay the same love, respect, aid, and comfort 
to others, which we expect from others ; for, beneficium qui 
dare nescit, injuste petit j nothing is more unreasonable or 
unequal than to require from others those good turns which, 
on like occasions, we are unwilling to render to others. 

We are obliged to these duties of humanity on account of 
common interest, benefit, and advantage. The welfare and 
safety, the honour and reputation, the pleasure and quiet of 
our lives, are concerned in our maintaining a loving corre- 
spondence with all men. For so uncertain is our condition, 
so obnoxious are we to manifold necessities, that there is no 
man whose goodwill we may not need, whose good word 
may not stand us in stead, whose helpful endeavour may not 
sometime oblige us. The great Pompey, the glorious tri- 
umpher over nations, and admired darling of fortune, was 
beholden at last to a slave for the composing his ashes, and 
celebrating his funeral obsequies. The honour of the greatest 
men depends on the estimation of the least ; and the good- 
will of the meanest peasant is a brighter ornament to the 
fortune, a greater accession to the grandeur of a prince, than 
the most radiant gem in his royal diadem. However, the 
spite and enmity of one (and him the most weak otherwise 
and contemptible) person may happen to spoil the content of 
our whole life, and deprive us of the most comfortable en- 
joyments thereof ; may divert our thoughts from our delight- 
ful employments to a solicitous care of self-preservation and 
defence ; may discompose our minds with vexatious passions; 
may, by false reports, odious suggestions, and slanderous 



BROTHERLY PEACE. 



203 



defamations, blast our credit, raise a storm of general hatred, 
and conjure up thousands of enemies against us ; may, by 
insidious practices, supplant and undermine us, prejudice 
our welfare, endanger our estate, and involve us in a bottom- 
less gulf of trouble : it is but reasonable, therefore, if we de- 
sire to live securely, comfortably, and quietly, that by all 
honest means we should endeavour to purchase the goodwill 
of all men, and provoke no man's enmity needlessly, since 
any man's love may be useful, and every man's hatred is 
dangerous. 

We are obliged to these duties by a tacit compact and 
fundamental constitution of mankind, in pursuance of those 
principal designs for which men were incorporated, and are 
still contained in civil society. For to this purpose do men 
congregate, cohabit, and combine themselves in sociable 
communion, that thereby they may enjoy a delightful con- 
versation, void of fear, free from suspicion, and free from 
danger ; promote mutual advantage and satisfaction ; be 
helpful and beneficial to each other : abstracting from which 
commodities, the retirements of a cloister, or the solitudes of 
a desert, the life of a recluse, or of a wild beast, would, per- 
haps, be more desirable than those of gregarious converse : 
for as men, being pleased and well-affected to each other, are 
the most obliging friends and pleasant companions ; so being 
enraged, they are the most mischievous and dangerous neigh- 
bours, the most fierce and savage enemies. By neglecting, 
therefore, or contravening these duties of humanity, we frus- 
trate the main ends of society, disappoint the expectations of 
each other, subvert the grounds of ordinary civility, and in 
the commonwealth deal as unpoliticly as the members in the 



204 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



body should act unnaturally, in subtracting mutual assistance, 
or harming each other ; as if the eye should deny to the 
hands the direction of sight, and the hands in revenge should 
pluck out the eyes. 

We are by observing these rules to oblige and render men 
well-affected to us, because being on such terms with men 
conduceth to our living (not only delightfully and quietly, but) 
honestly and religiously in this world. How peace and edifi- 
cation, spiritual comfort and temporal quiet do concur and 
co-operate, we see intimated, Acts ix, 31, "Then had the 
churches peace throughout all Judaea, and Galilee, and 
Samaria, and were edified : and walking in the fear of the 
Lord, and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost, were multiplied." 
St. Paul advised the Christians of his time, liable to persecu- 
tion, "to make prayers for all men" (and especially for those 
in eminent power), "that they might lead a quiet and peace- 
able life in all godliness and honesty f to pray for them, that 
is, to pray that they might be so disposed, as not to molest, 
interrupt, or discourage them in the exercise of virtue, and 
practice of piety. For these by a tranquillity of mind, a 
sedateness of affections, a competency of rest, and leisure, and 
retirement, a freedom from amazing fear, distracting care, 
and painful sense, are greatly advanced ; of which advantages 
by contentious broils and enmities we are deprived, and en- 
cumbered with the contrary impediments. They breed 
thorny anxieties, and by them choke the seeds of good in- 
tention: they raise dusky fumes of melancholy, by them in- 
tercepting the beams of spiritual light, and stifling the flames 
of devout affection. By them our thoughts are fixed on the 
basest, and taken off from the most excellent objects ; our 



BROTHERL Y PEA CE. 



205 



fancies are disordered by turbulent animosities ; our time is 
spent, and our endeavour taken up in the most ungrateful 
and unprofitable employments, of defeating the attempts, re- 
sisting the assaults, disproving the calumnies, countermining 
the plots of adversaries ; they bring us on the stage, against 
our will, and make us act parts in tragedies, neither becoming 
nor delighting us. They disturb often our natural rest, and 
hinder us in the despatch of our ordinary business ; and 
much more impede the steadiness of our devotion, and ob- 
struct the course of religious practice. They tempt us also 
to omissions of our duty, to unseemly behaviour, and to the 
commissions of grievous sin ; to harsh censure, envious de- 
traction, unwarrantable revenge, repining at the good suc- 
cesses, and delighting in the misfortunes of others. Many 
examples occur in history, like those of Hanno the Cartha- 
ginian, and Quint. Metellus (Pompey's antagonist), who, in 
pursuance of some private grudges, have not only betrayed 
their own interests, and sullied their own reputations ; but 
notably disserved and damnified the public weal of their 
country : and so will our being engaged in enmity with men 
cause us to neglect, if not to contradict, our dearest concern- 
ments ; whence we should carefully avoid the occasions 
thereof, and by an innocent and beneficent conversation 
oblige men to a friendly correspondence with us. 

We are obliged to perform these duties of humanity, be- 
cause, by so doing, we become more capable of promoting 
goodness in others, and so fulfilling the highest duties of 
Christian charity; of successfully advising and admonishing 
others ; of instructing their ignorance, and convincing their 
mistakes ; of removing their prejudices, and satisfying their 



2C6 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



scruples; of reclaiming them from vice, error, faction; and 
reconciling them to virtue, truth, and peace. For by no force 
of reason, or stratagem of wit, are men so easily subdued, 
by no bait so thoroughly allured and caught, as by real cour- 
tesy, gentleness, and affability ; as, on the other side, by a 
sour and peevish humour, supercilious looks, bitter language, 
and harsh dealing, men are rendered indocile and intractable, 
averse from better instruction, obstinate in their ways, and 
pertinacious in their conceits. Easily do men swallow the 
pill gilded with fair carriage, and sweetened by kind speech ; 
readily do they afford a favourable ear to the advice seeming 
to proceed from good- will, and a tender care of their good : 
but the physic of wholesome admonition being steeped in 
the vinegar of reproach, and tempered with the gall of pas- 
sion, becomes distasteful and loathsome to the patient: 
neither will men willingly listen to the reasonings of those 
whom they apprehend disaffected to their persons, and more 
desirous to wound their reputations than to cure their dis- 
tempers. The slightest argument, the most simple and un- 
polished oration, issuing from the mouth of a friend, is 
wonderfully more prevalent than the strongest demonstra- 
tion, than the most powerful eloquence of an enemy: For 
obliging usage and courteous speech unlock the affections, 
and by them insinuate into the reason of men ; but surly de- 
portment and froward expressions dam up the attention with 
prejudice, and interclude all avenues to the understanding. An 
illustration of which discourse we have from comparing -the 
different practice of the Jews, and the ancient Christians, 
with the contrary successes thereof. The Jews, by their 
seditious and turbulent practices, by their insolent contempt, 



BROTHERL Y PEA CE. 



2CJ 



and implacable hatred of others (for you know that Tacitus 
saith of them :* — Afind ifisos fides obstinata, misericordia in 
ftrompttt, sed adversus omnes alios hostile odium ), by their 
perverse and unsociable humours, declining all intercourse, 
and refusing ordinary offices of humanity (so much as to 
show the way, or to direct the thirsty traveller to the foun- 
tain) to any not of their own sect, did procure an odium, 
scorn, and infamy on their religion, rendered all men averse 
from inquiring into, or entertaining any good opinion thereof, 
and so very little enlarged its bounds, and gained few prose- 
lytes thereto. But the Christians, by a mild, patient, and 
peaceable behaviour by obedience to laws, and compliance 
with harmless customs; by perfect innocence, and abstinence 
from doing injury ; by paying due respects, and performing 
civil offices and demonstrations of benevolence; by loving 
conversation, and friendly commerce with all, commended 
their doctrine to the regard of men ;t and by this only piece 
of rhetoric (without terror of arms, or countenance of power, 
or plausibility of discourse, or promise of temporal reward) 
subdued the faith of men, and persuaded a great part of the 
world to embrace their excellent profession. 

" We converse with you like men ; we use the same diet, 
habit, and necessary furniture ; we have recourse to your 
tribunals ; we frequent your markets, your fairs, your shops, 
your stalls, your shambles, your baths ; we cohabit, we sail, 

* Hist. lib. v. 

f Thus the ancient Christians: but when religion declined, dis- 
sension and ill-will did grow; so that the heathen historian (Am. 
Mar. lib. xxii) could say of Julian: " Nullas infestas hominibus 
bestias, ut sunt sibi ferales plerique Christianorum, expertus." 



208 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



we war, we till, we trade, we maintain all manner of com- 
merce with you;" saith the Christian apologist to the Pagans, 
in behalf of the ancient Christians * Which kind of practice 
they derived not only from the sweet temper and noble 
genius of their religion, but from the express institution of 
the first teachers thereof, and from their exemplary practice 
therein. For both by doctrine did the Apostles exhort, and 
by their example incite them to adorn the gospel, and render 
the discipline of Christ amiable by their meek, gentle, com- 
pliant, and inoffensive conversation ; and thereby to allure 
others to a willing entertainment thereof. To this purpose 
are those exhortations, Phil, iv, 5, — " Let your moderation 
(to eViei/ces vp&v, i your equity,' or 1 gentleness') 'be known to 
all men"; and, 1 Thess. v, 14, " Comfort the afflicted, support 
the weak, be long-suffering toward all. Be ye all careful not 
to render evil for evil, but always pursue goodness toward 
each other, and toward all"; and, Gal. vi, 10, "As we have 
opportunity, let us do good to all men"; and, Tit hi, 1, 2, 
"Put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers, 
to be ready to every good work, to reproach no man, not to 
be contentious, but gentle, showing all meekness to all men"; 
and, 2 Tim. ii, 24, 25, " The minister of the Lord must not 
strive ; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient ; in 
meekness instructing those that oppose themselves" (or those 
that are otherwise disposed, robs avr^LariBe^vovs)', "if perad- 
venture God will give them repentance to the acknowledge- 
ment of the truth"; where gentleness toward all, and meek- 
ness toward adversaries, are oppositely conjoined, with 



Tertull. Apol. 



BRG THERL Y PEA CE. 209 

aptness to teach and instruct; the one qualification so effectu- 
ally predisposing to the other: and it is beside intimated 
that gentle and meek treatment are suitable instruments 
ordinarily employed by God to convert men from error to 
truth. 

We are bound hereto in compliance and conformity to the 
best patterns ; God, Christ, the apostles, the primitive saints. 
This illustrious doctor of Christian religion, St. Paul, did 
not fail to second this his doctrine with his own example : 
for, " give none offence", saith he, " neither to the Jews, nor 
to the Gentiles, nor to the church of God ; even as I please 
all men in all things, not seeking mine own profit, but the 
profit of many, that they may be saved." " Please all men 
in all things" ; what could St. Paul say, or what do more ? 
And again, " for though" saith he, " I be free from all men, 
yet have I made myself a servant unto all, that I might gain 
the more. To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain 
the weak : I am made all things to all men, that by all 
means I might save some." See how far this charitable de- 
sign of doing good to others transported him : he parted with 
his own freedom, that he might redeem them from the slavery 
of a wicked life ; he denied his own present satisfaction, that 
he might procure them a lasting content ; he despised his 
own profit, that he might promote their spiritual advan- 
tage ; he prostituted his own reputation, that he might ad- 
vance them to a condition of true glory. He underwent 
grievous afflictions for their comfort, sustained restless pains 
for their ease, and hazarded his own safety for their salvation. 
He condescended to their infirmities, suited his demeanour 
to their tempers, complied with their various humours and 

P 



2IO 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



contrary customs ; he differed from himself that he might 
agree with them, and transformed himself into all shapes 
that he might convert them into what they should be, reform 
their manners, and translate them into a happy estate. But 
above all is the practice of our Lord himself most remarkable 
to this purpose, and discovers plainly to him that observes 
an universally large and unrestrained philanthropy. For 
having from a wonderful conspiracy of kindness and good- 
will (between Him and his Eternal Father) toward the world 
of men, descended willingly from the throne of His celestial 
majesty, and enveloped His divine glory in a cloud of mortal 
frailty, and that, as the apostle saith, " He might reconcile 
all things in heaven and earth", conjoin God and man by a 
nearer alliance, and unite men together by the more sacred 
bands of common relation to himself. Having assumed not 
only the outward shape and corporeal resemblance of man, 
but the inward frame and real passions of human souls, He 
disdained not accordingly to obey the laws, to follow the in- 
clinations, to observe the duties of the best and most perfect 
humanity, with an equal and impartial bounty imparting 
free admittance, familiar converse, friendly aid and succour 
unto all, even the worst of men in all appearance (and that 
so far that some rigorous censurers thence presumed to tax 
him as " a glutton, and a good fellow, a friend to publicans 
and sinners"), distributing liberally to all the incomparable 
benefits of his heavenly doctrine, of his holy example, of 
his miraculous power ; instructing the ignorances, detecting 
me errors, dispossessing the devils ; sustaining the weak- 
nesses, overlooking the injuries, comforting the afflictions, 
supplying the necessities, healing the diseases, and remedy- 



BROTHERLY PEACE. 



211 



ing all the miseries of all, that did not wilfully reject their own 
welfare. "He went about", saith St. Peter in the Acts, 
" doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the 
devil": and " He went about all the cities and villages, teach- 
ing in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the 
kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease 
among the people", saith St. Matthew's gospel. He despised 
not the meanest, either in outward estate or spiritual im- 
provement. He invited all unto him, repelled or discour- 
aged none ; nor refused to any that came unto him his 
counsel or his help. He was averse from no man's society 
(and if in any degree from any, chiefly from those who con- 
fidently pretended to extraordinary sanctity, and proudlv 
contemned others). Meek and gentle he was, mild and 
patient ; courteous and benign ; lowly and condescensive ; 
tender and compassionate in his conversation unto all. And 
for a complement of his transcendent charity, and for an 
enforcement unto tfurs, he laid down his life for us all, as a 
common price to purchase remission of sins ; a general ran- 
som to redeem the human creation from the captivity of hell, 
and slavery of corruption into the glorious liberty of the sons 
of God ; demolishing by his pacific death all partition walls, 
and laying open all inclosures of the divine favour ; recon- 
ciling God to man, and combining man to himself by the 
fresh cement of his precious blood ; so that now, not only as 
fellow creatures, but (which is exceedingly more) as partakers 
of the same common redemption, as objects of the same 
mercy, as obliged in the same common debt, and as capable 
of the same eternal happiness, by new and firmer engage- 
ments we are bound to all mutual kindness and benevolence. 



212 



77/Zs SILENT HOUR, 



toward all. For, " destroy not", saith St. Paul (and, by like 
reason I may say, harm not, vex not, be not unkind to) "him, 
for whom Christ died." 

Nay, farther, we have the example of Almighty God 
Himself directing, and by our Saviour's express admonition 
obliging us to this universal beneficence, compassion, and 
patience towards all : who by express testimony of sacred 
writ, and by palpable signs of continual experience, declareth 
Himself to be a lover of mankind ; to be good to all, and 
tenderly merciful over all his works ; not to afflict willingly, 
nor grieve the children of men ; to compassionate the mi- 
series, and supply the needs, and relieve the distresses, to 
desire the salvation, and to delight in the happiness of men: 
who with an indifferent, unlimited munificence dispenses his 
blessings, extends his watchful providence, and imparts his 
loving care unto all, causing his sun with comfortable beams 
to shine, and the refreshing showers to descend, the earth to 
yield her pleasant fruits, the temperate seasons to recur, and 
all the elements to minister succour, joy, and satisfaction 
even to the most impious and ungrateful toward Him : who 
with immense clemency and longsufferance overlooks the 
sacrilegious affronts offered daily to His majesty, the out- 
rageous violations of His laws, and the contemptuous neglects 
of His inexpressible goodness : who patiently waits for the 
repentance, and incessantly solicits the reconcilement, courts 
the amity, and in a manner begs the goodwill of His most 
deadly enemies, whom He hath always in His hand, and 
can crush to nothing at His pleasure. For " we are ambas- 
sadors for Christ, as if God by us did intreat you, we beseech 
you, in Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God", saith St. Paul. 



BROTHERL Y PEA CE. 213 

Since, therefore, on account of natural consanguinity, of 
our best inclinations, of common equity, and general advan- 
tage, and an implicit compact between men : of securing our 
own and promoting others' virtue and piety ; from the exhorta- 
tions of scripture mentioned, and many more tending to the 
same purpose ; from the example of the ancient Christians, 
the leaders and champions of our religion, of the apostles, 
the masters and patriarchs thereof, of our blessed Redeemer, 
and of Almighty God himself, we are obliged to this universal 
benevolence and beneficence toward all : no misapprehen- 
sions of judgment, no miscarriages in practice, no ill dispo- 
sitions of soul, no demerits in himself, no discourtesies toward 
us, ought wholly to alienate our affections from, or to avert 
us from doing good, or to incline us to render evil for evil 
unto any person : especially considering that the omissions 
of others cannot excuse us from the performance of our duty; 
that no man is to be presumed incorrigible, nor (like the 
lapsed angels) concluded in desperate impenitence ; and that 
our loving and gentle demeanour toward them may be in- 
strumental to their amendment, and the contrary may contri- 
bute to their progress and continuance in offences : that God 
hath promised to us a reward of our patience, and hath re- 
served to them a season of judgment and punishment if 
they persist obstinate in their disorderly courses : that to 
avenge their trespasses belongs not to us, but to Almighty 
God, who is more nearly concerned in, and more injured by 
them, and is yet content to endure them, to prolong their 
lives, to continue his benefits to them, and to expect their 
conversion : that our differing from them is not to be attri- 
buted to ourselves, but wholly or chiefly to the goodness of 



214 



THE SILENT HOUR, 



God; that we always were, are, and shall be liable to the 
same errors, vices, and misdemeanours : that, lastly, the 
faults and follies of others, like the maims of body, distem- 
pers of soul, or crosses of fortune (being their own greatest 
unhappiness), require rather our pity than our hatred, to be 
eased by our help than aggravated by our unkindness. 'Tis 
too scant, therefore, and narrow a charity that is limited by 
correspondence of courtesy, or by the personal merits of 
others. We are bound to live peaceably with, that is, to be 
innocent, beneficial, respective to all, and to seek the reci- 
procal goodwill, love, and amity of all. But I have insisted 
too long on this particular, concerning the object of this duty 
and its extension. 

I proceed briefly to consider whence it comes that (as I 
before observed, was intimated in these words, " If it be pos- 
sible, as much as lieth in you") though we do our parts, and 
perform carefully the duties incumbent on us, though we 
bear goodwill, and do good offices, and yield due respects, 
and abstain from all not only injurious, but rigorous dealings 
toward all ; though we revile none, nor censure harshly, nor 
presumptuously intermeddle with others' affairs ; though we 
obey laws, and comply with received customs, and avoid 
all occasions of contention ; though our tempers be meek, 
our principles peaceable, and our conversations inoffensive, 
we may yet prove successless in our endeavours to live 
peaceably, and may be hated, harmed, and disquieted in our 
course of life. That it so happens, we find by plain experi- 
ence and manifold example. For Moses, the meekest man 
on earth, and commended beside by all circumstances of 
divine favour and human worth, was yet often envied, im- 



BROTHERL Y PEA CE. 



215 



pugned, and molested by those whom, by all manner of 
benefits, he had most highly obliged. And we find David 
frequently complaining that by those whose goodwill — by 
performing all offices of friendly kindness and brotherly 
affection — he had studiously laboured to deserve, whose ma- 
ladies and calamities he had not only tenderly commiserated, 
but had prayed and humbled his soul with fasting for their 
recovery and deliverance from them, was yet recompensed 
by their treacherous devices against his safety, by grievous 
reproaches, and scornful insultings over him in his affliction ; 
as we see at large in Psalms xxxv and lxix. And in Psalm cxx 
he thus lamentably bemoans his condition : " Woe is me, 
that I sojourn in Mesech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar : 
My soul hath long dwelt with him that hateth peace : I am 
for peace ; but when I speak, they are for war". And our 
blessed Saviour himself, though in the whole tenor of his life 
he demonstrated an incomparable meekness and sweetness 
of disposition, and exercised continually all manner of kind- 
ness and beneficence toward all men, was, notwithstanding, 
loaded with all kinds of injuries and contumelies, was bitterly 
hated, ignominiously disgraced, and maliciously persecuted 
unto death. And the same lot befel his faithful disciples, 
that although their design was benign and charitable, their 
carriage blameless and obliging toward all, they were yet 
pursued constantly both by the outrageous clamours of the 
people, and cruel usages from those in eminent power. 

Now, though it seem strange and almost incredible that 
they who are truly friends to all, and are ready to do to all 
what good they can, — who willingly displease none, but in- 
dustriously strive to acquire (not with glozing shows of popu- 



2l6 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



larity, but by real expressions of kindness) the goodwill 
and favour of all, should yet be maligned or molested by 
any ; yet seeing it so happens, if we inquire into the reason, 
we shall find this miracle in morality to proceed (to omit the 
neglect of the duties mentioned in our former discourse) 
chiefly from the exceeding variety, difference, and contrariety 
of men's dispositions, joined with the morosity, aptness tc 
mistake, envy, or unreasonable perverseness of some, which 
necessarily render the means of attaining all men's goodwill 
insufficient, and the endeavours unsuccessful. For men see- 
ing by several lights, relishing with diversely opposed palates, 
and measuring things by different standards, we can hardly do 
or say anything which, if approved and applauded by some, 
will not be disliked and blamed by others ; if it advance us in 
the opinion of some, will not as much depress us in the judg- 
ment of others ; so that in this irreconcilable diversity and 
inconsistency of men's apprehensions, it is impossible not to 
displease many ; especially since some men either by their na- 
tural temper, or from the influence of some sour principles they 
have imbibed, are so morose, rigid, and self-willed, so impatient 
of all contradiction to, or discrepancy from their sentiments, 
that they cannot endure any to dissent in judgment, or vary 
in practice from them, without incurring their heavy disdain 
and censure. And, which makes the matter more desperate and 
remediless, such men commonly being least able either to 
manage their reason or to command their passion, as guided 
wholly by certain blind impulses of fancy, or groundless preju- 
dices of conceit, or by a partial admiration of some men's 
persons, examples, and authorities, are usually most resolute 
and peremptory in their courses, and thence hardly capable 



BRO THERL Y PEA CE. 



217 



of any change, mitigation, or amendment. Of which sort 
there being divers engaged in several ways, it is impossible 
to please some without disgusting the other, and difficult 
altogether to approach any of these wasps without being 
stung or vexed by them. Some also are so apt to misunder- 
stand men's meanings, to misconstrue their words, and to 
make ill descants on, or draw bad consequences from their 
actions, that it is not possible to prevent their entertaining 
ill-favoured prejudices against even those that are heartily 
their friends, and wish them the best. To others, the good 
and prosperous estate of their neighbour, that he flourishes 
in wealth, power, or reputation, is ground sufficient of hatred 
and enmity against him ; for so we see that Cain hated his 
innocent brother Abel, because his brother's works were 
more righteous, and his sacrifices better accepted, than his 
own ; that Joseph's brethren were mortallv offended at him, 
because his father especially loved and delighted in him; 
that Saul was enraged against David, because his gallant 
deeds were celebrated with due praises and joyful acclama- 
tions of the people ; and that the Babylonian princes on no 
other score maligned Daniel, but because he enjoyed the 
favour of the king, and a dignity answerable to his deserts. 
And who that loves his own welfare, can possibly avoid such 
enmities as these ? 

But the fatal rock, on which peaceable designs are most 
inevitably split, and which by no prudent steering our course 
can sometimes be evaded, is the unreasonable perverseness of 
men's pretences, who sometimes will on no terms be friends 
with us, or allow us their good-will, but on condition of con- 
curring with them in dishonest and unwarrantable practices; 



2l3 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



of omitting some duties, to which by the express command of 
God, or evident dictates of right reason, we are obliged, or 
performing some action repugnant to those indispensable 
rules. But though peace with men is highly valuable, and 
possessing their good-will in worth not inferior to any other 
indifferent accommodation of life, yet are these nothing com- 
parable to the favour of God, or the internal satisfaction of 
conscience ; nor, though we were assured thereby to gain the 
entire love and favour of all men living, are we to purchase 
them at so dear a rate, as with the loss of these. We must 
not, to please or gratify men, commit anything prohibited, or 
omit anything enjoined by God, the least glimpse of whose 
favourable aspect is infinitely more to be prized than the most 
intimate friendship of the mightiest monarchs on earth ; and 
the least spark of whose indignation is more to be dreaded, 
than the extremest displeasure of the whole world. In case 
of such competition, we must resolve with St. Paul, "Do I 
yet conciliate God, or do I endeavour to soothe men ? For 
if I yet soothed (or flattered) men (so you know apeaKeiv sig- 
nifies), I were not the servant of Christ." Nor are we, that 
we may satisfy any man's pleasure, to contravene the dictates 
of reason (that subordinate guide of our actions) to do any 
dishonourable or uncomely action, unworthy of a man, mis- 
beseeming our education, or incongruous to our station in 
human society, so as to make ourselves worthily despicable 
to the most by contenting some : nor are we bound always to 
desert our own considerable interest, or betray our just liberty, 
that we may avoid the enmity of such as would violently or 
fraudulently encroach on them. Nor are We in the adminis- 
tration of justice, distribution of rewards, or arbitration of 



BRO THERL Y PEA CE. 



219 



controversies, to respect the particular favour of any, but the 
merits only of the cause, or the worth of the persons con- 
cerned. Nor are we by feeding men's distempered humours, 
or gratifying their abused fancies, to prejudice or neglect their 
real good ; to encourage thern in bad practices, to foment 
their irregular passions, to applaud their unjust or uncha- 
ritable censures, or to puff up their minds with vain con- 
ceit by servile flattery : but rather, like faithful physicians, to 
administer wholesome though unsavoury advice ; to reveal to 
them their mistakes, to check their intended progress in bad 
courses, to reprove their faults seasonably and when it may 
probably do them good, though possibly thereby we may 
provoke their anger and procure their ill-will, and, as St. 
Paul saith, become their enemies, for telling them the truth. 

Nor are we ever explicitly to assent to falsehoods (so ap- 
prehended by us), to belie our own consciences, or contradict 
our real judgments (though we may sometimes for peace sake 
prudently conceal them) ; nor to deny the truth our defence 
and patronage, when in order to some good purpose it needs 
and requires them, though thereby we may incur the dislike, 
and forfeit the good-will of some men. Nor are we by enter- 
taining any extraordinary friendship, intimate familiarity, or 
frequent converse with persons notoriously dissolute in their 
manners, disorderly in their behaviour, or erroneous in 
weighty points of opinion, to countenance their misde- 
meanors, dishonour our profession, render ourselves justly 
suspected, run the hazard of contagion, or hinder their re- 
formation. And especially we are warily to decline the par- 
ticular acquaintance of men of contentious dispositions, mis- 
chievous principles, and factious designs ; a bare keeping 



220 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



company with whom looks like a conspiracy, an approving or 
abetting their proceedings ; the refusing any encouragement, 
signification of esteem, or vouchsafing any peculiar respect to 
such, we owe to the honour of virtue, which they disgrace, to 
the love of truth, which they oppugn, to the peace of the 
world, which they disturb, and to the general good of man- 
kind, which they impeach. And so St. Paul warns us not to 
mingle or consort, not to diet or common (fib ovvavafxiyvvoeai, 
and avveaeUiv) with men of a dissolute and disorderly con- 
versation: and, "to mark them which cause seditions, and 
scandals, contrary to Christian doctrine, and to shun or de- 
cline them" (iKfcXfreiv an-' avrwv), and to repudiate, deprecate 
the familiarity of heretics (alptriKbv fodpuirov irapaiTsiaQai), And 
St. John forbids us to wish joy, or to allow the ordinary 
respects of civil salutation to apostates and impostors ; lest 
(by such demonstration of favour) "we communicate with 
them in their wicked works." None of which precepts are 
intended to interdict us, or to disoblige us from bearing real 
good-will, or dispensing needful benefits to any, but to deter 
us from yielding any signal countenance to vice and impiety; 
and to excite us to declare such dislike and detestation of 
those heinous enormities, as may confer to the reclaiming of 
these, and prevent the seduction of others. So St. Paul ex- 
pressly, "But if any man obeyeth not our injunction by 
epistle, do not consort with him, that he may by shame be 
reclaimed" (fro iurpa-nf) ; and, "Account him not an enemy, 
but admonish him as a brother." 

Nor ought, lastly, the love of peace, and desire of friendly 
correspondence with any men, to avert us from an honest zeal 
(proportionable to our abilities and opportunities) of pro- 



BRO THERL V PEA CE. 



221 



moting the concernments of truth and goodness, though 
against powerful and dangerous opposition ; I say an honest 
zeal, meaning thereby not that blind, heady passion, or in- 
flammation of spirit, transporting men beyond the bounds of 
reason and discretion, on some superficially plausible pre- 
tences, to violent and irregular practices ; but a considerate 
and steady resolution of mind, effectually animating a man 
by warrantable and decent means vigorously to prosecute 
commendable designs ; like that St. Jude mentions, of 
"striving earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints." 
For this zeal may be very consistent with, yea, greatly con- 
ducible to, the designs of peace. And 'tis noc a drowsiness, a 
slack remissness, a heartless diffidence, or a cowardly flinching 
from the face of danger and opposition, we discourse about 
or plead for ; but a wise and wary declining the occasions 
of needless and unprofitable disturbance to ourselves and 
others. 

To conclude this point (which, if time would have per- 
mitted, I should have handled more fully and distinctly), 
though to preserve peace, and purchase the good- will of men, 
we may and ought to quit much of our private interest and 
satisfaction, yet ought we not to sacrifice to them what is 
not our own, nor committed absolutely to our disposal, and 
which in value incomparably transcends them, the main- 
tenance of truth, the advancement of justice, the practice of 
virtue, the quiet of our conscience, the favour of Almighty 
God. And if, for being dutiful to God, and faithful to our- 
selves in these particulars, any men will hate, vex, and de- 
spite us ; frustrate our desires, and defeat our purposes of 
living peaceably with all men in this world ; we may comfort 



222 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



ourselves in the enjoyment of eternal peace and satisfaction 
of mind, in the assurance of the divine favour, in the hopes 
of eternal rest and tranquillity in the world to come. 

Now briefly to induce us to the practice of this duty of 
living peaceably, we may consider : 

i. "How good and pleasant a thing it is," as David saith, 
"for brethren (and so we are all at least by nature) to live to- 
gether in unity." How that, as Solomon saith, "Better is a 
dry morsel and quietness therewith, than a house full of sacri- 
fices with strife." How delicious that conversation is, which 
is accompanied with a mutual confidence, freedom, courtesy, 
and complacence: how calm the mind, how composed the 
affections, how serene the countenance, how melodious the 
voice, how sweet the sleep, how contentful the whole life is of 
him, that neither deviseth mischief against others, nor sus- 
pects any to be contrived against himself ; and contrariwise, 
how ingrateful and loathsome a thing it is to abide in a state 
of enmity, wrath, dissension ; having the thoughts distracted 
with solicitous care, anxious suspicion, envious regret ; the 
heart boiling with choler, the face overclouded with discon- 
tent, the tongue jarring and out of tune, the ears filled with 
discordant noises of contradiction, clamour, and reproach ; 
the whole frame of body and soul distempered and disturbed 
with the worst of passions. How much more comfortable it 
is to walk in smooth and even paths, than to wander in rugged 
ways overgrown with briars, obstructed with rubs, and beset 
with snares ; to sail steadily in a quiet, than to be tossed in a 
tempestuous sea ; to behold the lovely face of heaven smiling 
with a cheerful serenity, than to see it frowning with clouds, 
or raging with storms ; to hear harmonious consents, than 



ERG THERL Y PEA CE. 



223 



dissonant wranglings; to see objects correspondent in graceful 
symmetry, than lying disorderly in confused heaps ; to be in 
health, and have the natural humours consent in moderate 
temper, than (as it happens in diseases) agitated with 
tumultuous commotions : how all senses and faculties of 
man unanimously rejoice in those emblems of peace, order, 
harmony, and proportion ; yea, how nature universally de- 
lights in a quiet stability, or undisturbed progress of motion; 
the beauty, strength, and vigour of everything requires a con- 
currence of force, co-operation, and contribution of help ; all 
things thrive and flourish by communicating reciprocal aid, 
and the world subsists by a friendly conspiracy of its parts ; 
and especially that political society of men chiefly aims at 
peace as its end, depends on it as its cause, relies on it as its 
support. How much a peaceful state resembles heaven, into 
which neither complaint, pain, nor clamour (oure mivQos, ovre 
7r<Ws, ovt€ Kpavy}}, as it is in the Apocalypse) do ever enter ; 
but blessed souls converse together in perfect love, and in 
perpetual concord : and how a condition of enmity represents 
the state of hell, that black and dismal region of dark hatred, 
fiery wrath, and horrible tumult. How like a paradise the 
world would be, flourishing in joy and rest, if men would 
cheerfully conspire in affection, and helpfully contribute to 
each other's content : and how like a savage wilderness now 
it is, when, like wild beasts, they vex and persecute, worry 
and devour each other. How not only philosophy hath placed 
the supreme pitch of happiness in a calmness of mind, and 
tranquillity of life, void of care and trouble, of irregular pas- 
sions and perturbations ; but that holy Scripture itself in that 
one term of peace most usually comprehends all joy and con- 



224 



THE SILENT HOUR, 



tent, all felicity and prosperity : so that the heavenly consort 
of angels, when they agree most highly to bless, and to wish 
the greatest happiness to mankind, could not better express 
their sense, than by saying, "Be on earth peace, and good 
will among men." 

2. That as nothing is more sweet and delightful, so nothing 
more comely and agreeable to human nature than peaceable 
living, it being, as Solomon saith, "an honour to a man to 
cease from strife ;" and consequently also a disgrace to him 
to continue therein : that rage and fury may be the excellences 
of beasts, and the exerting their natural animosity in strife 
and combat may become them ; but reason and discretion 
are the singular eminences of men, and the use of these the 
most natural and commendable method of deciding contro- 
versies among them : and that it extremely misbecomes them 
that are endowed with those excellent faculties so to abuse 
them, as not to apprehend each other's meanings, but to 
ground vexatious quarrels on the mistake of them ; not to be 
able by reasonable expedients to compound differences, but 
with mutual damage and inconvenience to prorogue and in- 
crease them : not to discern how exceedingly better it is to 
be helpful and beneficial, than to be mischievous and trouble- 
some to one another. How foolishly and unskilfully they 
judge, that think, by unkind speech and harsh dealing to allay 
men's distempers, alter their opinions, or remove their pre- 
judices ; as if they should attempt to kill by ministering 
nourishment, or to extinguish a flame by pouring oil on it. 
How childish a thing it is eagerly to contend about trifles, for 
the superiority in some impertinent contest, for the satisfac- 
tion of some petty humour, for the possession of some incon- 



BROTHERL Y PEA CE. 



225 



siderable toy : yea, how barbarous aud brutish a thing it is 
to be fierce and impetuous in the pursuit of things that please 
us, snarling at, biting, and tearing all competitors of our 
game, or opposers of our undertaking. But how divine and 
amiable, how worthy of human nature, of civil breeding, of 
prudent consideration it is, to restrain partial desires, to con- 
descend to equal terms, to abate from rigorous pretences, to 
appease discords, and vanquish enmities by courtesy and 
discretion ; like the best and wisest commanders, who by 
skilful conduct, and patient attendance on opportunity, with- 
out striking of stroke, or shedding of blood, subdue their 
enemy. 

3. How that peace with its near alliance and concomitants, 
its causes and effects, love, meekness, gentleness, and pa- 
tience, are in sacred writ reputed the genuine fruits of the 
Holy Spirit, issues of divine grace, and offsprings of heavenly 
wisdom ; producing like themselves a goodly progeny of 
righteous deeds. But that emulation, hatred, wrath, variance, 
and strife, derive their extraction from fleshly lust, hellish 
craft, or beastly folly ; propagating themselves also into a 
like ugly brood of wicked works. For so saith St. James, 
"If ye have bitter zeal and strife in your hearts, glory not, 
nor be deceived untruly": "This wisdom descendeth not from 
above, but is earthly, sensual, and devilish : for where emu- 
lation and strife are, there is tumult, and every naughty 
thing : but the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then 
peaceable, gentle, obsequious, full of mercy (or beneficence) 
and of good fruits, without partiality and dissimulation : and 
the fruit of righteousness is sowed in peace to those that 
make peace": "And from whence are wars and quarrels 

Q 



226 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



among you ? Are they not hence, even from your lusts, that 
war in your members?" Likewise, "He loveth transgression 
that loveth strife"; and, "A fool's lips enter into contention, 
and his mouth calleth for strokes," saith Solomon. That the 
most wicked and miserable of creatures is described by titles 
denoting enmity and discord : the hater (Satan), the enemy 
(6 ixOpbs foepwiros), the accuser (6 Kar-nyopos)^ the slanderer 
(6 $idfio\os) y the destroyer (o airoAAiW), the furious dragon, and 
mischievously treacherous snake ; and how sad it is to imitate 
him in his practices, to resemble him in his qualities. But 
that the best, most excellent, and most happy of Beings de- 
lights to be styled, and accordingly to express Himself, the 
God of love, mercy, and peace ; and His blessed Son to be 
called, and to be, the Prince of peace, the great Mediator, 
Reconciler, and Peace-maker ; who is also said from on high 
to have visited us, "to give light to them that sit in darkness, 
and in the shadow of death ; and to guide our feet in the ways 
of peace." That, lastly, no devotion is pleasing, no oblation 
acceptable to God, conjoined with hatred, or proceeding from 
an unreconciled mind ; for, "If thou bring thy gift to the 
altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught 
against thee ; leave there thy gift before the altar and go 
thy way ; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come 
and offer thy gift," saith our Saviour. 

I close up all with this corollary : that if we must live 
lovingly and peaceably with all men, then much more are we 
obliged to do so with all Christians : to whom by nearer and 
firmer bands of holy alliance we are related ; by more pre- 
cious communions in faith and devotion we are endeared ; by 
more peculiar and powerful obligations of divine commands, 



BROTHERL Y PEA CE. 



227 



sacramental vows, and formal professions we are engaged : 
our spiritual brethren, members of the same mystical body, 
temples of the same Holy Spirit, servants of the same Lord, 
subjects of the same Prince, professors of the same truth, par- 
takers of the same hope, heirs of the same promise, and can- 
didates of the same everlasting happiness. 

Now, Almighty God, the most good and beneficent Maker, 
gracious Lord, and merciful Preserver of all things, infuse into 
our hearts those heavenly graces of meekness, patience, and 
benignity, grant us and His whole church, and all His 
creation, to serve Him quietly here, and in a blissful rest to 
praise and magnify Him for ever : to whom, with His blessed 
Son, the great Mediator and Prince of peace, and with His 
Holy Spirit, the overflowing spring of all love, joy, comfort, 
and peace, be all honour, glory, and praise. 



ON MARRIAGE* 



Part L 




[HE first blessing God gave to man was society ; 
| and that society was a marriage, and that mar- 
I riage was confederatef by God himself, and hal- 
I lowed by a blessing ; and at the same time, and 



for very many descending ages, not only by the instinct of 
nature, but by a superadded forwardness (God himself in- 
spiring the desire) the world was most desirous of children, 
impatient of barrenness, accounting single life a curse, and 
a childless person hated by God. The world was rich and 
empty, and able to provide for a more numerous posterity 
than it had. " You that are rich, Numenius, you may mul- 
tiply your family, poor men are not so fond of children". 



* "This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the 
church. Nevertheless, let every one of you in particular so love his 
wife even as himself, and the wife see that she reverence her hus- 
band." — Ephes. v, 32, 33. 

t Co7ifede7'ate, brought together ; made into an alliance ; united 
in league. Here is a later use of the adjective : — 

" He is a freeman whom the truth makes free, 
And all are slaves beside. There 's not a chain 
That hellish foes confederate for his harm, 
Can wind around him but he casts it off." 



ON MARRIAGE. 



229 



But when a family could drive their herds, and set their 
children on camels, and lead them till they saw a fat soil 
watered with rivers, and there sit down without paying rent, 
they thought of nothing but to have great families, that their 
own relations might swell up to a patriarchate, and their 
children be enough to possess all the regions that they saw, 
and their grandchildren become princes, and themselves build 
cities and call them by the name of a child, and become the 
fountain of a nation. This was the consequent of the first 
blessing, " Increase and multiply". The next blessing was 
the promise of the Messias, and that also increased in men 
and women a wonderful desire of marriage ; for as soon as 
God had chosen the family of Abraham to be the blessed 
line, from whence the world's Redeemer should descend ac- 
cording to the flesh, every of his daughters hoped to have 
the honour to be His mother, or his grandmother, or some- 
thing of his kindred ; and to be childless in Israel was a sorrow 
to the Hebrew women great as the slavery of Egypt, or their 
dishonours in the land of their captivity. 

But when the Messias was come, and the doctrine was 
published, and His ministers but few, and His disciples were 
to suffer persecution, and to be of an unsettled dwelling, and 
the nation of the Jews, in the bosom and society of which 
the church especially did dwell, were to be scattered and 
broken all in pieces with fierce calamities, and the world was 
apt to calumniate and to suspect and dishonour Christians 
on pretences and unreasonable jealousies, and that to all 
these purposes the state of marriage brought many incon- 
veniences ; it pleased God in this new creation to inspire 
into the hearts of His servants a disposition and strong de- 



230 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



sires to live a single life, lest the state of marriage should, in 
that conjunction of things, become an accidental impediment 
to the dissemination of the gospel, which called men from a 
confinement in their domestic charges to travel, and flight, 
and poverty, and difficulty, and martyrdom : on this neces- 
sity the apostles and apostolical men published doctrines 
declaring the advantages of single life, not by any command- 
ment of the Lord, but by the spirit of prudence, "for the 
present and then incumbent necessities", and in order to the 
advantages which did accrue to the public ministries and 
private piety. " There are some (said our blessed Lord) who 
make themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven", that 
is, for the advantages and the ministry of the gospel, non ad 
vita bonce meritum (as St. Austin in the like case) ; not that 
it is a better service of God in itself, but that it is useful to 
the first circumstances of the gospel and the infancy of the 
kingdom, because the unmarried person " is apt to spiritual 
and ecclesiastical employments" : and it was also of ease to 
the Christians themselves, because, as then it was, when they 
were to flee, and to flee for aught they knew in winter, and 
they were persecuted to the four winds of heaven ; and the 
nurses and the women with child were to suffer a heavier 
load of sorrow, because of the imminent persecutions ; and 
above all, because of the great fatality of ruin on the whole 
nation of the Jews, well might it be said by St. Paul, " Such 
shall have trouble in the flesh"; that is, they that are married 
shall, and so at that time they had ; and therefore it was an 
act of charity to the Christians to give that counsel : " I do 
this to spare you", and " I would have you to be without 
care" : for when the case was altered, and that storm was 



ON MARRIAGE. 231 

over, and the first necessities of the gospel served, and " the 
sound was gone out into all nations" ; in very many persons 
it was wholly changed, and not the married, but the unmarried, 
had "trouble in the flesh" : and the state of marriage returned 
to its first blessing, " and it was not good for man to be 
alone". 

But in this first interval, the public necessity and the pri- 
vate zeal mingling together did sometimes overact their love 
of single life, even to the disparagement of marriage, and to 
the scandal of religion : which was increased by the occa- 
sion of some pious persons renouncing their contract of 
marriage, not consummate, with believers. For when Flavia 
Domitilla, being converted by Nereus and Achilleus the 
eunuchs, refused to marry Aurelianus, to whom she was con- 
tracted ; if there were not some little envy and too sharp 
hostility in the eunuchs to a married state, yet Aurelianus 
thought himself an injured person, and caused St. Clemens, 
who veiled her, and his spouse both, to die in the quarrel. 
St. Thecla being converted by St. Paul, grew so in love with 
virginity, that she leaped back from the marriage of Tamyris, 
where she was lately engaged. St. Iphigenia denied to 
marry king Hyrtacus, and it is said to be done by the advice 
of St. Matthew. And Susanna, the niece of Dioclesian, re- 
fused the love of Maximianus the emperor, — and these all 
had been betrothed ; and so did St. Agnes, and St. Felicula, 
and divers others then and afterward : insomuch that it was 
reported among the Gentiles that the Christians did not only 
hate all that were not of their persuasion, but were enemies 
of the chaste laws of marriage ; and indeed some that were 
called Christians were so ; " forbidding to marry, and com- 



232 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



manding to abstain from meats". On this occasion it grew 
necessary for the apostle to state the question right, and to 
do honour to the holy rite of marriage, and to snatch the 
mystery from the hands of zeal and folly, and to place it in 
Christ's right hand, that all its beauties might appear, and a 
present convenience might not bring in a false doctrine, and 
a perpetual sin, and an intolerable mischief. The apostle, 
therefore, who himself had been a married man, but was now 
a widower, does explicate the mysteriousness of it, and de- 
scribes its honours, and adorns it with rules and provisions 
of religion, that, as it begins with honour, so it may proceed 
with piety and end with glory. 

For although single life hath in it privacy and simplicity 
of affairs, such solitariness and sorrow, such leisure and in- 
active circumstances of living, that there are more spaces 
for religion if men would use them to these purposes ; and 
because it may have in it much religion and prayers, and 
must have in it a perfect mortification of our strongest appe- 
tites, it is therefore a state of great excellency ; yet concern- 
ing the state of marriage, we are taught from scripture and 
the sayings of wise men, great things are honourable. " Mar- 
riage is honourable in all men", so is not single life ; for in 
some it is a snare and irvpwaLs, " a trouble in the flesh", a pri- 
son of unruly desires, which is attempted daily to be broken. 
Celibate or single life is never commanded, but in some 
cases marriage is ; he that cannot contain must marry, and 
he that can contain is not tied to a single life, but may marry 
and not sin. Marriage was ordained by God, instituted in 
paradise, was the relief of a natural necessity, and the first 
blessing from the Lord ; he gave to man not a friend, but a 



ON MARRIAGE. 



233 



wife — that is, a friend and a wife too (for a good woman is in 
her soul the same that a man is, and she is a woman only in 
her body ; that she may have the excellency of the one, and 
the usefulness of the other, and become amiable in both) : it 
is the seminary of the church, and daily brings forth sons 
and daughters unto God : it was ministered to by angels, 
and Raphael waited on a young man that he might have a 
blessed marriage, and that that marriage might repair two 
sad families, and bless all their relatives. Our blessed Lord, 
though he was born of a maiden, yet she was veiled under 
the cover of marriage, and she was married to a widower, — 
for Joseph, the supposed father of our Lord, had children by 
a former wife. The first miracle that ever Jesus did was to 
do honour to a wedding. Marriage was in the world before 
sin, and is, in all ages of the world, the greatest and most 
effective antidote against sin, in which all the world had 
perished, if God had not made a remedy : and although sin 
hath soured marriage, and struck the man's head with cares, 
and the woman's bed with sorrows in the production of chil- 
dren, yet these are but throes of life and glory, and " she 
shall be saved in child-bearing, if she be found in faith and 
righteousness". Marriage is a school and exercise of virtue ; 
and though marriage hath cares, yet the single life hath de- 
sires, which are more troublesome and more dangerous, and 
often end in sin ; while the cares are but instances of duty 
and exercises of piety : and therefore, if single life hath more 
privacy of devotion, yet marriage hath more necessities and 
more variety of it, and is an exercise of more graces. In 
two virtues, celibate or single life may have the advantage of 
degrees ordinarily and commonly, — that is, in chastity and 



234 



THE SILENT HOUR, 



devotion : but as in some persons this may fail, and it does 
in very many, and a married man may spend as much time in 
devotion as any virgins or widows do ; yet as in marriage 
even those virtues of chastity and devotion are exercised ; 
so in other instances, this state hath proper exercises and 
trials for those graces for which single life can never be 
crowned. Here is the proper scene of piety and patience, of 
the duty of parents and the charity of relatives ; here kind- 
ness is spread abroad, and love is united and made firm as a 
centre ; marriage is the nursery of heaven ; the virgin sends 
prayers to God, but she carries but one soul to him : but the 
state of marriage fills up the numbers of the elect, and hath 
in it the labour of love and the delicacies of friendship, the 
blessing of society, and the union of hands and hearts : it 
hath in it less of beauty, but more of safety, than the single 
life ; it hath more care, but less danger ; it is more merry, 
and more sad ; is fuller of sorrows, and fuller of joys ; it lies 
under more burdens, but is supported by all the strengths of 
love and charity, and those burdens are delightful. Marriage 
is the mother of the world, and preserves kingdoms, and fills 
cities, and churches, and heaven itself. Celibate, like the 
fly in the heart of an apple, dwells in a perpetual sweetness, 
but sits alone, and is confined and dies in singularity ; but 
marriage, like the useful bee, builds a house and gathers 
sweetness from every flower, and labours and unites into so- 
cieties and republics, and sends out colonies, and feeds the 
world with delicacies, and obeys its king, and keeps order, 
and exercises many virtues, and promotes the interest of 
mankind, and is that state of good things to which God hath 
designed the present constitution of the world. 



ON MARRIAGE. 235 

Single life makes men in one instance to be like angels, 
but marriage in very many things makes the chaste pair to 
be like to Christ. "This is a great mystery," but it is the 
symbolical and sacramental representation of the greatest 
mysteries of our religion. Christ descended from his 
Father's bosom, and contracted his divinity with flesh and 
blood, and married our nature, and we became a church, the 
spouse of the Bridegroom, which he cleansed with his blood, 
and gave her his Holy Spirit for a dowry, and heaven for a 
jointure; begetting children unto God by the Gospel. This 
spouse he hath joined to himself by an excellent charity, 
he feeds her at his own table, and lodges her nigh his own 
heart, provides for all her necessities, relieves her sorrows, 
determines her doubts, guides her wanderings, he is become 
her head, and she as a signet on his right hand ; he first, 
indeed, was betrothed to the synagogue, and had many chil- 
dren by her, but she forsook her love, and then he married 
the Church of the Gentiles, and by her had a more numerous 
issue, "all the children dwell in the same house," and are heirs 
of the same promises, entitled to the same inheritance. Here 
is the eternal conjunction, the indissoluble knot, the exceed- 
ing love of Christ, the obedience of the spouse, the communi- 
cating of goods, the uniting of interests, the fruit of marriage, 
a celestial generation, a new creature. This is the sacra- 
mental mystery, represented by the holy rite of marriage ; so 
that marriage is divine in its institution, sacred in its union, 
holy in the mystery, sacramental in its signification, honour- 
able in its appellative, religious in its employments : it is ad- 
vantage to the societies of men, and it is "holiness to the 
Lord." Dico autetn in Chris to et ecclesia^ "It must be in 
Christ and the church." 



23$ 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



If this be not observed, marriage loses its mysteriousness : 
but because it is to effect much of that which it signifies, it 
concerns all that enter into those golden fetters to see that 
Christ and his church be in at every of its periods, and that 
it be entirely conducted and overruled by religion ; for so the 
apostle passes from the sacramental rite to the real duty : 
" Nevertheless," that is, although the former discourse were 
wholly to explicate the conjunction of Christ and his church 
by this similitude, yet it hath in it this real duty, "that the 
man love his wife, and the wife reverence her husband" : and 
this is the use we shall now make of it, the particulars of 
which precept I shall thus dispose : — 

i. I shall propound the duty as it generally relates to man 
and wife in conjunction. 2. The duty and power of the man. 
3. The rights and privileges and the duty of the wife. 

1. "In Christ and the church": that begins all, and there is 
great need it should be so ; for they that enter into a state of 
marriage, cast a die of the greatest contingency, and yet of 
the greatest interest in the world, next to the last throw for 
eternity. Life or death, felicity or a lasting sorrow, are in the 
power of marriage. A woman, indeed, ventures most, for she 
hath no sanctuary to retire from an evil husband ; she must 
dwell on her sorrow, and hatch the eggs which her own folly 
or infelicity hath produced : and she is more under it, because 
her tormentor hath a warrant of prerogative, and the woman 
may complain to God, as subjects do of tyrant princes, but 
otherwise she hath no appeal in the causes of unkindness. 
And though the man can run from many hours of his sadness, 
yet he must return to it again ; and when he sits among his 
neighbours, he remembers the objection that lies in his 
bosom, and he sighs deeply. 



ON MARRIAGE. 



237 



The boys, and the pedlars, and the fruiterers, shall tell of 
this man, when he is carried to his grave, that he lived and 
died a poor wretched person. The stags in the Greek epi- 
gram, whose knees were clogged with frozen snow on the 
mountains, came down to the brooks of the valleys, "hoping 
to thaw their joints with the waters of the stream":* but there 
the frost overtook them, and bound them fast in ice, till the 
young herdsmen took them in their stranger-snare. It is the- 
unhappy chance of many men, finding many inconveniences 
on the mountains of single life, they descend into the valleys 
of marriage to refresh their troubles, and there they enter into 
fetters, and are bound to sorrow by the cords of a man's or 
woman's peevishness : and the worst of the evil is, they are 
to thank their own follies ; for they fell into the snare by en- 
tering an improper way. Christ and the church were no in- 
gredients in their choice : but as the Indian women enter into 
folly for the price of an elephant, and think their crime war- 
rantable, so do men and women change their liberty for a 
rich fortune (like Eriphyle the Argive, "she preferred gold 
before a good man"), and show themselves to be less than 
money, by overvaluing that to all the content and wise felicity 
of their lives ; and when they have counted the money and 
their sorrows together, how willingly would they buy, with the 
loss of all that money, modesty, or sweet nature, to their re- 
lative ! The odd thousand pounds would gladly be allowed 
in good nature and fair manners. As very a fool is he that 
chooses for beauty principally : cni sunt eruditi oculi, et 
stttlta mens (as one said), "whose eyes are witty, and their 



* Brunck. An. ii, 135. 



2 3 8 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



souls sensual"; it is an ill band of affections to tie two hearts 
together by a little thread of red and white. 

And they can love no longer but until the next ague comes ; 
and they are fond of each other but at the chance of fancy, or 
the small-pox, or child-bearing, or care, or time, or anything 
that can destroy a pretty flower. But it is the basest of all, 
when lust is the paranymph, and solicits the suit, and makes 
the contract, and joins the hands ; for this is commonly the 
effect of the former, according to the Greek proverb ; at first, 
for his fair cheeks and comely beard, "the beast is taken for 
a lion, but at last he is turned to a dragon, or a leopard, or a 
swine". That which is at first beauty on the face, may prove 
lust in the manners. 

"He or she that looks too curiously on the beauty of the 
body, looks too low, and hath flesh and corruption in his 
heart, and is judged sensual and earthly in his affections and 
desires", said St. Clement. Begin, therefore, with God : 
Christ is the president of marriage, and the Holy Ghost is 
the fountain of purities and chaste loves, and He joins the 
hearts ; and, therefore, let our first suit be in the court of 
heaven, and with designs of piety, or safety, or charity : let 
no impure spirit defile the virgin purities and "castifications 
of the soul" (as St. Peter's phrase is) ; let all such contracts 
begin with religious affections. 

"We sometimes beg of God for a wife or a child ; and He 
alone knows what the wife shall prove, and by what disposi- 
tions and manners, and into what fortune that child shall 
enter":* but we shall not need to fear concerning the event of 

* "Conjugium petimus, partumque uxoris; at illis 

Notum, qui pueri, qualisve futura sit uxor." — Juv. x, 342. 



ON MARRIAGE. 



-39 



it, if religion, and fair intentions, and prudence manage and 
conduct it all the way. The preservation of a family, the 
production of children, the avoiding fornication, the refresh- 
ment of our sorrows by the comforts of society ; all these are 
fair ends of marriage, and hallow the entrance. But in these 
there is a special order : society was the first designed, " It is 
not good for man to be alone": children was the next, "In- 
crease and multiply": but the avoiding fornication came in 
by the superfcetation of the evil accidents of the world. The 
first makes marriage delectable, the second necessary to the 
public, the third necessary to the particular ; this is for safety, 
for life, and heaven itself. 

The other have in them joy and a portion of immortality : 
the first makes the man's heart glad ; the second is the friend 
of kingdoms, and cities, and families ; and the third is the 
enemy to hell, and an antidote of the chiefest inlet to damna- 
tion: but of all these the noblest end is the multiplying of 
children. And therefore St. Ignatius, when he had spoken 
of Elias, and Titus, and Clement, with an honourable men- 
tion of their virgin state, lest he might seem to have lessened 
the married apostles, at whose feet in Christ's kingdom he 
thought himself unworthy to sit, he gives this testimony, — 
"that they may not be disparaged in their great names of 
holiness and severity, they were secured by not marrying to 
satisfy their lower appetites, but out of desire of children". 
Other considerations, if they be incident and by way of ap- 
pendage, are also considerable in the accounts of prudence : 
but when they become principals, they defile the mystery, and 
make the blessing doubtful: Amabit sapiens ', cnpient ccete?'i, 
said Afranius ; " Love is a fair inducement, but desire and 



24o THE SILENT HOUR. 

appetite are rude, and the characterisms of a sensual person"; 
— Amare justi et boni est, cup ere impotent is. 

2. Man and wife are equally concerned to avoid all offences 
of each other in the beginning of their conversation : every 
little thing can blast an infant blossom ; and the breath of the 
south can shake the little rings of the vine, when first they 
begin to curl like the locks of a new-weaned boy ; but when 
by age and consolidation they stiffen into the hardness of a 
stem, and have, by the warm embraces of the sun and the 
kisses of heaven, brought forth their clusters, they can endure 
the storms of the north, and the loud noises of a tempest, and 
yet never be broken : so are the early unions of an unfixed 
marriage; watchful and observant, jealous and busy, inquisi- 
tive and careful, and apt to take alarm at every unkind word. 
For infirmities do not manifest themselves in the first scenes, 
but in the succession of a long society ; and it is not chance 
or weakness when it appears at first, but it is want of love or 
prudence, or it will be so expounded ; and that which appears 
ill at first, usually affrights the inexperienced man or woman, 
who makes unequal conjectures, and fancies mighty sorrows 
by the proportions of the new and early unkindness. It is a 
very great passion, or a huge folly, or a certain want of love, 
that cannot preserve the colours and beauties of kindness, so 
long as public honesty requires a man to wear their sorrows 
for the death of a friend. Plutarch compares a new marriage 
to a vessel before the hoops are on: "everything dissolves 
their tender compaginations ; but when the joints are stiffened 
and are tied by a firm compliance and proportioned bending, 
scarcely can it be dissolved without fire or the violence of 
iron". After the hearts of the man and the wife are endeared 



ON MARRIAGE. 



and hardened by a mutual confidence, and experience 
longer than artifice and pretence can last, there are a great 
many remembrances, and some things present, that dash all 
little unkindnesses in pieces. The little boy in the Greek 
epigram, that was creeping down a precipice, was invited to 
his safety by the sight of his mother's breast, when nothing- 
else could entice him to return ; and the bond of common 
children, and the sight of her that nurses what is most dear 
to him, and the endearments of each other in the course of a 
long society, and the same relation, is an excellent security to 
redintegrate and to call that love back, which folly and trifling 
accidents would disturb. 

When it is come thus far, it is hard untwisting the knot ; 
but be careful in its first coalition, that there be no rudeness 
done ; for, if there be, it will for ever after be apt to start and 
to be diseased. 

3. Let man and wife be careful to stifle little things,* that, 
as fast as they spring, they be cut down and trod on ; for if 
they be suffered to grow by numbers, they make the spirit 
peevish, and the society troublesome, and the affections loose 
and easy by an habitual aversation. Some men are more 
vexed with a fly than with a wound ; and when the gnats 
disturb our sleep, and the reason is disquieted but not per- 
fectly awakened, it is often seen that he is fuller of trouble, 
than if, in the daylight of his reason, he were to contest with 
a potent enemy. In the frequent little accidents of a family, 
a man's reason cannot always be awake ; and when his dis- 



* "Quaedam parva quidem, sed non toleranda maritis". 

Juv.x\, 184. 
R 



242 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



courses are imperfect, and a trifling trouble makes him yet 
more restless, he is soon betrayed to the violence of passion. 
It is certain that the man or woman are in a state of weakness 
and folly then, when they can be troubled with a trifling ac- 
cident ; and, therefore, it is not good to tempt their affections, 
when they are in that state of danger. In this case the 
caution is, to subtract fuel from the sudden flame ; for 
stubble, though it be quickly kindled, yet it is as soon ex- 
tinguished, if it be not blown by a pertinacious breath, or fed 
with new materials. Add no new provocations to the acci- 
dent, and do not inflame this, and peace will soon return, and 
the discontent will pass away soon, as the sparks from the 
collision of a flint : ever remembering, that discontents, pro- 
ceeding from daily little things, do breed a secret undis- 
cernible disease, which is more dangerous than a fever pro- 
ceeding from a discerned notorious surfeit. 

4. Let them be sure to abstain from all those things, which 
by experience and observation they find to be contrary to 
each other. They that govern elephants, never appear before 
them in white ; and the masters of bulls keep from them all 
garments of blood and scarlet, as knowing that they will be 
impatient of civil usages and discipline, when their natures 
are provoked by their proper antipathies. The ancients, in 
their marital hieroglyphics, used to depict Mercury standing 
by Venus, to signify, that by fair language and sweet entrea- 
ties, the minds of each other should be united ; and hard by 
them, Suadam et Gratias descriftseru?it, they would have all 
deliciousness of manners, compliance and mutual observance 
to abide. 

5. Let the husband and wife infinitely avoid a curious dis- 



ON MARRIAGE. 



?43 



tinction of mine and thine ; for this hath caused all the laws, 
and all the suits, and all the wars, in the world ; let them who 
have but one person, have also but one interest. The hus- 
band and wife are heirs to each other (as Dionysius Halicar- 
nasseus relates from Romulus) if they die without children ; 
but if there be children, the wife is rots irato-lu iaoixoipos, "a 
partner in the inheritance". But during their life, the use 
and employment is common to both their necessities ; and in 
this there is no other difference of right, but that the man 
hath the dispensation of all, and may keep it from his wife, 
just as the governor of a town may keep it from the right 
owner ; he hath the power, but no right, to do so. And when 
either of them begins to impropriate, it is like a tumour in 
the flesh, it draws more than its share ; but w r hat it feeds on, 
turns to a boil; and, therefore, the Romans forbade any 
donations to be made between man and wife, because neither 
of them could transfer a new right of those things which al- 
ready they had in common ; but this is to be understood 
only concerning the uses of necessity and personal con- 
veniences ; for so all may be the woman's, and all may be 
the man's, in several regards. Corvinus dwells in a farm and 
receives all its profits, and reaps and sows as he pleases, and 
eats of the corn and drinks of the wine — it is his own : but 
all that also is his lord's, and for it Corvinus pays acknow- 
ledgment ; and his patron hath such powers and uses of it as 
are proper to the lord ; and yet, for all this, it may be the 
king's too, to all the purposes that he can need, and is all to 
be accounted in the census and for certain services and times 
of danger ; so are the riches of a family ; they are a woman's 
as well as a man's : they are hers for needj and hers for or- 



244 



THE SILENT HOUR, 



nament, and hers for modest delight, and for the uses of 
religion and prudent charity; but the disposing them into 
portions of inheritance, the assignation of charges and go- 
vernments, stipends and rewards, annuities and greater dona- 
tives, are the reserves of the superior right, and not to be 
invaded by the under possessors. But in those things, where 
they ought to be common, if the spleen or the belly swells 
and draws into its capacity much of that which should be 
spent on those parts which have an equal right to be main- 
tained, it is a dropsy or a consumption of the whole, some- 
thing that is evil because it is unnatural and monstrous. 
Macarius, in his thirty-second homily, speaks fully in this 
particular : a woman betrothed to a man bears all her portion, 
and with a mighty love pours it into the hands of her hus- 
band, and says, ^ov obhlv "I have nothing of my own"; 
my goods, my portion, my body, and my mind are yours, 
"All that a woman hath, is reckoned to the right of her hus- 
band ; not her wealth and person only, but her reputation 
and her praise". But as the earth, the mother of all creatures 
here below, sends up all its vapours and proper emissions at 
the command of the sun, and yet requires them again to re- 
fresh her own needs, and they are deposited between them 
both in the bosom of a cloud, as a common receptacle, that 
they may cool his flames, and yet descend to make her fruit- 
ful ; so are the properties of a wife to be disposed of by her 
lord; and yet all are for her provisions, it being a part of his 
need to refresh and supply hers, and it serves the interest of 
both while it serves the necessities of either. 

These are the duties of them both, which have common 
regards and equal necessities and obligations ; and, indeed, 



ON MARRIAGE. 



245 



there is scarce any matter of duty, but it concerns them both 
alike, and is only distinguished by names, and hath its 
variety by circumstances and little accidents : and what in 
one is called "love", in the other is called "reverence"; and 
what in the wife is "obedience", the same in the man is "duty". 
He provides, and she dispenses ; he gives commandments, 
and she rules by them ; he rules her by authority, and she 
rules him by love ; she ought by all means to please him, and 
he must by no means displease her. For as the heart is set 
in the midst of the body, and though it strikes to one side by 
the prerogative of nature, yet those throbs and constant 
motions are felt on the other side also, and the influence is 
equal to both ; so it is in conjugal duties : some motions are 
to the one side more than to the other, but the interest is on 
both, and the duty is equal in the several instances. If it be 
otherwise, it is but an unnatural union, neither pleasing nor 
holy, useless to all the purposes of society, and dead to 
content. 



THE MARRIAGE RING. 

(On Marriage— Part II.) 

HE next inquiry is more particular, and considers 
the power and duty of the man ; " Let every one 
of you so love his wife even as himself: she is as 
himself; the man hath power over her as over 
himself, and must love her equally. A husband's power over 
his wife is paternal and friendly, not magisterial and despotic. 
The wife is in perpetna tutela, under conduct and counsel ; 
for the power a man hath, is founded in the understanding, 
not in the will or force ; it is not a power of coercion, but a 
power of advice, and that government that wise men have 
over those who are fit to be conducted by them. "Husbands 
should rather be fathers than lords", said Valerius, in Livy. 
Homer adds more soft appellatives to the character of a 
husband's duty : " Thou art to be a father and a mother to 
her, and a brother": and great reason, unless the state of 
marriage should be no better than the condition of an orphan. 
For she that is bound to leave father, and mother, and brother 
for thee, either is miserable, like a poor fatherless child, or 
else ought to find all these, and more, in thee. Medea in 
Euripides had cause to complain when she found it other- 
wise. 




THE MARRIAGE RING. 247 

Which passage St. Ambrose* well translates : " It is sad, 
when virgins are, with their own money, sold to slavery, and 
that services are in better state than marriages, for they re- 
ceive wa^es ; but these buy their fetters, and pay dear for 
their loss of liberty"; and therefore the Romans expressed 
the man's power over his wife but by a gentle word. " Let 
there be no governor of the woman appointed, but a censor 
of manners, one to teach the men to moderate their wives", 
said Cicero ; that is, fairly to induce them to the measures 
of their own proportions. It was rarely observed of Philo, 
" When Adam made that fond excuse for his folly in eating 
the forbidden fruit, he said, 6 The woman thou gavest to be 
with me, she gave me.' He says not ' The woman which 
thou gavest to me', no such thing ; she is none of his goods, 
none of his possessions, not to be reckoned amongst his ser- 
vants ; God did not give her to him so ; but 6 The woman 
thou gavest to be with me' ; that is, to be my partner, the 
companion of my joys and sorrows, thou gavest her for use, 
not for dominion." The dominion of a man over his wife is 
no other than as the soul rules the body ; for which it takes 
a mighty care, and uses it with a delicate tenderness, and 
cares for it in all contingencies, and watches to keep it from 
all evils, and studies to make for it fair provisions, and very 
often is led by its inclinations and desires, and does never 
contradict its appetites but when they are evil, and then also 
not without some trouble and sorrow ; and its government 
comes only to this, — it furnishes the body with light and un- 
derstanding, and the body furnishes the soul with hands and 



Exhort, ad Virg. 



2 4 3 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



feet ; the soul governs, because the body cannot else be 
happy, but the government is no other than provision ; as a 
nurse governs a child when she causes him to eat, and to be 
warm, and dry, and quiet. And yet even the very govern- 
ment itself is divided ; for man and wife in the family are as 
the sun and moon in the firmament of heaven, — he rules by 
day and she by night, that is, in the lesser and more proper 
circles of her affairs, in the conduct of domestic provisions 
and necessary offices, and shines only by his light, and rules 
by his authority ; and as the moon in opposition to the sun 
shines brightest ; that is, then, when she is in her own circles 
and separate regions ; so is the authority of the wife then 
most conspicuous, when she is separate and in her proper 
sphere, — in gynceceo, in the nursery and offices of domestic 
employment : but when she is in conjunction with the sun her 
brother, that is, in that place and employment in which his 
care and proper offices are employed, her light is not seen, 
her authority hath no proper business ; but else there is no 
difference. For they were barbarous people, among whom 
wives were instead of servants, said Spartianus in Caracalla ; 
and it is a sign of impotency and weakness to force the 
camels to kneel for their load, because thou hast not spirit 
and strength enough to climb ; to make the affections and 
evenness of a wife bend by the flexures of a servant, is a 
sign the man is not wise enough to govern when another 
stands by. So many differences as can be in the appellatives 
of governor and governess, lord and lady, master and mis- 
tress, the same difference there is in the authority of man 
and woman, and no more : Si tu Caius, ego Caia, was pub- 
licly proclaimed on the threshold of the young man's house, 



THE MARRIAGE RING. 



249 



when the bride entered into his hands and power ; and the 
title of domina, in the sense of the civil law, was, among the 
Romans, given to wives. 

And, therefore, although there is just measure of subjection 
and obedience due from the wife to the husband (as I shall 
after explain) yet nothing of this is expressed in the man's 
character or in his duty ; he is not commanded to rule, nor 
instructed how, nor bidden to exact obedience, or to defend 
his privilege ; all his duty is signified by love, " by nourishing 
and cherishing" {Ephes. v, 25), by being joined with her in all 
the unions of charity, by "not being bitter to her" (Col. iii, 19), 
by " dwelling with her according to knowledge, giving honour 
to her" (1 Pet. iii, 7) ; so that it seems to be with husbands as 
it is with bishops and priests, to whom much honour is due ; 
but yet so that if they stand on it, and challenge it, they be- 
come less honourable : and as amongst men and women, 
humility is the way to be preferred, so it is in husbands, they 
shall prevail by cession, by sweetness and counsel, and cha- 
rity and compliance. So that we cannot discourse of the 
man's right, without describing the measures of his duty ; 
that therefore follows next. 

2. "Let him love his wife even as himself": that is his 
duty, and the measure of it too, — which is so plain, that if 
he understands how he treats himself, there needs nothing 
be added concerning his demeanour towards her, save only 
that we add the particulars in which Holy Scripture instances 
this general commandment. 

" Be not bitter against her"; that is the first, and this is the 
least index and signification of love : a civil man is never 
bitter against a friend or a stranger, much less to him that 



250 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



enters under his roof, and is secured by the laws of hos- 
pitality. But a wife does all that and more ; she quits all 
her interest for his love, she gives him all that she can give, 
she is as much the same person as another can be the same 
who is conjoined by love, and mystery, and religion, and all 
that is sacred and profane. 

They have the same fortune, the same family, the same 
children, the same religion, the same interest, "the same 
flesh" ; and therefore this the apostle urges for his itiKpalv^^ 
" be not bitter", " no man hateth his own flesh, but nourisheth 
and cherisheth it" ; and he certainly is strangely sacrilegious 
and a violator of the rights of hospitality and sanctuary 
who uses her rudely, who is fled for protection, not only to 
his house, but also to his heart and bosom. A wise man 
will not wrangle with any one, much less with his dearest re- 
lative ; and if it is accounted indecent to embrace in public, 
it is extremely shameful to brawl in public ; for the other is 
in itself lawful, but this never, though it were assisted with 
the best circumstances of which it is capable. Marcus Au- 
relius said that " a wise man ought often to admonish his 
wife, to reprove her seldom, but never to lay his hands on 
her." 

St. Chrysostom, preaching earnestly against this barbarous 
inhumanity of striking the wife, or reviling her with evil 
language, says, it is as if a king should beat his viceroy and 
use him like a dog ; from whom most of that reverence and 
majesty must needs depart which he first put on him, and 
the subjects shall pay him less duty, how much his prince 
hath treated him with less civility ; but the loss redounds to 
himself : and the government of the whole family shall be 



THE MARRIAGE RING. 251 

disordered if blows be laid on that shoulder which, together 
with the other, ought to bear nothing but the cares and the 
issues of a prudent government. And it is observable, that 
no man ever did this rudeness for a virtuous end ; it is an 
incompetent instrument, and may proceed from wrath and 
folly, but can never end in virtue and the unions of a prudent 
and fair society. " If you strike, you exasperate the wound 
(saith St. Chrysostom), and (like Cato at Utica in his despair) 
tear the wounds in pieces" ; and yet he that did so ill to him- 
self, whom he loved well, he loved not women tenderly, and 
yet would never strike ; and if the man cannot endure her 
talking, how can she endure his striking ? But this caution 
contains a duty in it which none prevaricates, but the meanest 
of the people, fools, and bedlams, whose kindness is a curse, 
whose government is by chance and violence, and their 
families are herds of talking cattle. 

The marital love is infinitely removed from all possibility 
of such rudeness : it is a thing pure as light, sacred as a 
temple, lasting as the world. Amicitia, quce desinere potuit y 
nunquam vera fuit, said one ; " That love, that can cease, 
was never true" ; it is dfuKia, so Moses called it ; it is ewxua, 
so St. Paul ; it is (ptXSryjs, so Homer ; it is (piXotppoaiivrj, so 
Plutarch,— that is, it contains in it all sweetness and all 
society, and felicity, and all prudence, and all wisdom. For 
there is nothing can please a man without love ; and if a 
man be weary of the wise discourses of the apostles, and of 
the innocency of an even and a private fortune, or hates 
peace or a fruitful year, he hath reaped thorns and thistles 
from the choicest flowers of paradise, "for nothing can 



252 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



sweeten felicity itself but love" :* but when a man dwells in 
love, then the breasts of his wife are pleasant as the drop- 
pings on the hill of Hermon, her eyes are fair as the light of 
heaven, she is a fountain sealed, and he can quench his 
thirst, and ease his cares, and lay his sorrow down on her 
lap, and can retire home to his sanctuary and refectory, and 
his gardens of sweetness and chaste refreshments. No man 
can tell but he that loves his children, how many delicious 
accents make a man's heart dance in the pretty conversation 
of those dear pledges ; their childishness, their stammering, 
their little angers, their innocence, their imperfections, their 
necessities, are so many little emanations of joy and comfort 
to him that delights in their persons and society : but he 
that loves not his wife and children, feeds a lioness at home, 
and broods a nest of sorrows ; and blessing itself cannot 
make him happy. So that all the commandments of God 
enjoining a man "to love his wife", are nothing but so many 
necessities and capacities of joy. " She that is loved is safe ; 
and he that loves is joyful". Love is a union of all things 
excellent ; it contains in it proportion and satisfaction, and 
rest and confidence ; and I wish that this were so much pro- 
ceeded in that the heathens themselves could not go beyond 
us in this virtue, and its proper and its appendant happiness. 
Tiberius Gracchus chose to die for the safety of his wife % 
and yet, methinks, for a Christian to do so, should be no 
hard thing ; for many servants will die for their masters, and 

# * 4 Felices ter et amplius, 

Quos irrupta tenet copula, nec malis 
Divulsus querimoniis, 

Suprema citius sol vet amor die. " — Horat. Od. i, 1 3, 1 7. 



THE MARRIAGE RING, 



253 



many gentlemen will die for their friend ; but the examples 
are not so many of those that are ready to do it for their 
dearest relatives, and yet some there have been. Baptista 
Fregosa tells of a Neapolitan that gave himself a slave to 
the Moors that he might follow his wife ; and Dominicus 
Catalusius, the prince of Lesbos, kept company with his 
lady when she was a leper : and these are greater things 
than to die. 

But the cases in which this can be required are so rare 
and contingent, that Holy Scripture instances not the duty 
in this particular ; but it contains in it that the husband 
should nourish and cherish her, that he should refresh her 
sorrows and entice her fears into confidence and pretty arts 
of rest ; for even the fig-trees that grew in paradise had 
sharp-pointed leaves, and harshnesses fit to mortify the too- 
forward lusting after the sweetness of the fruit. But it will 
concern the prudence of the husband's love to make the 
cares and evils as simple and as easy as he can, by doubling 
the joys and acts of a careful friendship, by tolerating her 
infirmities (because by so doing he either cures her or makes 
himself better), by fairly expounding all the little traverses 
of society and communication, " by taking everything by the 
right handle", as Plutarch's expression is ; for there is no- 
thing but may be misinterpreted, and yet if it be capable of 
a fair construction, it is the office of love to make it. Love 
will account that to be well said which, it may be, was not 
so intended ; and then it may cause it to be so another 
time. 

3. Hither also is to be referred that he secure the interest 
of her virtue and felicity by a fair example ; for a wife to a 



254 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



husband is a line or superficies ; it hath dimensions of its 
own, but no motion or proper affections, but commonly puts 
on such images of virtues or vices as are presented to her by 
her husband's idea : and if thou beest vicious, complain not 
that she is infected that lies in thy bosom, the interest of 
whose love ties her to transcribe thy copy, and write after 
the characters of thy manners. Paris was a man of plea- 
sure, and Helena was an adultress, and she added covetous- 
ness on her account. But Ulysses was a prudent man and a 
wary counsellor, sober and severe ; and he efformed his wife 
into such imagery as he desired : and she was chaste as the 
snows on the mountains, diligent as the fatal sisters, always 
busy, and always faithful ; " she had a lazy tongue, and a 
busy hand." 

4. Above all the instances of love let him preserve towards 
her an inviolable faith and an unspotted chastity ; for this 
is the marriage ring ; it ties two hearts by an eternal 
band ; it is like the cherubim's flaming sword, set for the 
guard of paradise; he that passes into that garden, now that 
it is immured by Christ and the church, enters into the shades 
of death. No man must touch the forbidden tree, that in the 
midst of the garden, which is the tree of knowledge and life. 
Chastity is the security of love, and preserves all the mys- 
teriousness like the secrets of a temple. Under this lock is 
deposited security of families, the union of affections, the re- 
pairer of accidental breaches. This is a grace that is shut up 
and secured by all arts of heaven, and the defence of laws, 
the locks and bars of modesty, by honour and reputation, by 
fear and shame, by interest and high regards ; and that con- 
tract that is intended to be for ever, is yet dissolved and 



THE MARRIAGE RING. 255 

broken by the violation of this ; nothing but death can do so 
much evil to the holy rites of marriage, as unchastity and 
breach of faith can. 

By the laws of the Romans, a man might kill his daughter 
or his wife, if he surprised her in the breach of her holy vows, 
which are as sacred as the threads of life, secret as the pri- 
vacies of the sanctuary, and holy as the society of angels ; 
and God that commanded us to forgive our enemies, left it in 
our choice, and hath not commanded us to forgive an adul- 
terous husband or a wife ; but the offended party's displeasure 
may pass into an eternal separation of society and friendship. 
Now in this grace it is fit that the wisdom and severity of the 
man should hold forth a pure taper, that his wife may, by 
seeing the beauties and transparencies of that crystal, dress 
her mind and her body by the light of so pure reflections ; it 
is certain he will expect it from the modesty and retirement, 
from the passive nature and colder temper, from the humility 
and fear, from the honour and love, of his wife, that she be 
pure as the eye of heaven : and therefore it is but reason that 
the wisdom and nobleness, the love and confidence, the 
strength and severity, of the man, should be as holy and 
certain in this grace, as he is a severe exactor of it at her 
hands, who can more easily be tempted by another, and less 
by herself. 

These are the little lines of a man's duty, which, like 
threads of light from the body of the sun, do clearly describe 
all the regions of his proper obligations. Now concerning 
the woman's duty, although it consists in doing whatsoever 
her husband commands, and so receives measures from the 
rules of his government, yet there are also some lines of life 



256 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



depicted on her hands, by which she may read and know how 
to proportion out her duty to her husband. 

1. The first is obedience ; which because it is nowhere en- 
joined that the man should exact of her, but often commanded 
to her to pay, gives demonstration that it is a voluntary ces- 
sion that is required ; such a cession as must be without 
coercion and violence on his part, but on fair inducements, 
and reasonableness in the thing, and out of love and honour 
on her part. When God commands us to love Him, He means 
we should obey Him : "This is love, that ye keep my com- 
mandments"; and "if ye love me", said our Lord, "keep my 
commandments". Now as Christ is to the church, so is man 
to the wife ; and, therefore, obedience is the best instance of 
her love ; for it proclaims her submission, her humility, her 
opinion of his wisdom, his pre-eminence in the family, the 
right of his privilege, and the injunction imposed by God on 
her sex, that although in sorrow she bring forth children, yet 
with love and choice she should obey. The man's authority 
is love, and the woman's love is obedience ; and it was not 
rightly observed of him that said, when the woman fell, " God 
made her timorous, that she might be ruled, apt and easy to 
obey"; for this obedience is no way founded in fear, but in 
love and reverence ; unless also that we will add, that it is an 
effect of that modesty, which, like rubies, adorns the necks 
and cheeks of women. Pudicitia est, pater, eos magnificare, 
qui nos socias sumpsemnt sibi* said the maiden in the 
comedy: "it is modesty to advance and highly to honour 
them, who have honoured us by making us to be the com- 



# Plautus in Sticho, i, 2, 43. 



THE MARRIAGE RING. 257 

panions of their dearest excellencies"; for the woman that 
went before the man in the way of death, is commanded to 
follow him in the way of love ; and that makes the society to 
be perfect, and the union profitable, and the harmony com- 
plete. For then the soul and body make a perfect man, when 
the soul commands wisely, or rules lovingly, and cares pro- 
fitably, and provides plentifully, and conducts charitably that 
body which is its partner, and yet the inferior. But if the 
body shall give laws, and, by the violence of the appetite, first 
abuse the understanding, and then possess the superior por- 
tion of the will and choice, the body and the soul are not apt 
company, and the man is a fool and miserable. If the soul 
rules not, it cannot be a companion ; either it must govern, 
or be a slave : never was king deposed and suffered to live in 
the state of peerage and equal honour, but made a prisoner, 
or put to death ; and those women, that had rather lead the 
blind than follow prudent guides, rule fools and easy men 
than obey the powerful and wise, never made a good society 
in a house : a wife never can become equal but by obeying ; 
but so her power, while it is in minority, makes up the 
authority of the man integral, and becomes one government, 
as themselves are one man. "Male and female created He 
them, and called their name Adam", saith the Holy Scripture 
{Gen. v, 2); they are but one; and, therefore, the several parts 
of this one man must stand in the place where God appointed, 
that the lower parts may do their offices in their own station, 
and promote the common interest of the whole. A ruling- 
woman is intolerable* But that is not all ; for she is miser- 

* "Faciunt graviora coactoe 
Imperio sexus." Juvenal, vi, 109. 

S 



2 5 8 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



able too. It is a sad calamity for a woman to be joined to 
a fool or a weak person ; it is like a guard of geese to keep 
the capitol ; or as if a flock of sheep should read grave lec- 
tures to their shepherd, and give him orders where he shall 
conduct them to pasture. " To have a fool to one's master", 
is the fate of miserable and unblessed people ; and the wife 
can be no ways happy, unless she be governed by a prudent 
lord, whose commands are sober counsels, whose authority 
is paternal, whose orders are provisions, and whose sentences 
are charity. 

But now concerning the measures and limits of this obe- 
dience, we can best take accounts from Scripture : & nav-vi, 
saith the apostle, " in all things" (Ephes. v, 24), " as to the 
Lord", and that is large enough ; " as unto a lord", ut an- 
cilia domino; so St. Jerome understands it, who neither was 
a friend to the sex nor to marriage, but his mistake is soon 
confuted by the text ; it is not ut dominis, be subject to 
your husbands " as unto lords", but &s t<£ Kvpfy, that is, " in 
all religion", in reverence and in love, in duty and zeal, in 
faith and knowledge ; or else ws Kvpiq may signify, " wives 
be subject to your husbands, but yet so that at the same 
time ye be subject to the Lord". For that is the measure of 
ii> Traitrl, " in all things" : and it is more plain in the parallel 
place, avrjKev iu Kvplcp, " as it is fit in the Lord" (Col. iii, 18) : 
religion must be the measure of your obedience and subjec- 
tion : intra Unities discipline, so Tertullian expresses it. So 
Clemens Alexandrinus : " In all things let the wife be subject 
to the husband, so as to do nothing against his will ; those 
only things excepted, in which he is impious or refractory in 
things pertaining to wisdom and piety". 



THE MARRIAGE RING. 



259 



But in this also there is some peculiar caution. For 
although in those things which are of the necessary parts of 
faith and holy life, the woman is only subject to Christ, who 
only is and can be Lord of consciences, and commands alone 
where the conscience is instructed and convinced ; yet as it 
is part of the man's office to be a teacher, and a prophet, and 
a guide, and a master, so also it will relate very much to the 
demonstration of their affections to obey his counsels, to 
imitate his virtues, to be directed by his wisdom, to have her 
persuasion measured by the lines of his excellent religion : 
" It were hugely decent", saith Plutarch, " that the wife should 
acknowledge her husband for her teacher and her guide" ; 
for then when she is what he pleases to efform her, he hath 
no cause to complain if she be no better, " his precepts and 
wise counsels can draw her off from vanities" ; and what he 
said of geometry, that, if she be skilled in that, she will not 
easily be a gamester or a dancer, may perfectly be said of 
religion. If she suffers herself to be guided by his counsel, 
and efformed by his religion, either he is an ill master in his 
religion, or he may secure in her, and for his advantage, an 
excellent virtue. And although in matters of religion the 
husband hath no empire and command, yet if there be a 
place left to persuade, and entreat, and induce by arguments, 
there is not in a family a greater endearment of affections 
than the unity of religion: and anciently it was not permitted 
to a woman to have a religion by herself:* and the rites 
which a woman performs severally from her husband, are not 



* "Eosdem quos maritus nosse Deos et colere solos uxor debet." 

— Plutarch. 



260 



THE SILENT HOUR, 



pleasing to God ; and therefore Pomponia Grsecina, because 
she entertained a stranger religion, was permitted to the 
judgment of her husband Plautius : and this whole affair is 
no stranger to Christianity, for the Christian woman was not 
suffered to marry an unbelieving man ; and although this is 
not to be extended to different opinions within the limits of 
the common faith, yet thus much advantage is won or lost 
by it, that the compliance of the wife, and submission of her 
understanding to the better rule of her husband in matters 
of religion, will help very much to warrant her, though she 
should be mispersuaded in a matter less necessary ; yet no- 
thing can warrant her in her separate rites and manners of 
worshippings, but an invincible necessity of conscience, and 
a curious infallible truth ; and if she be deceived alone, she 
hath no excuse ; if with him, she hath much pity, and some 
degrees of warranty under the protection of humility, and 
duty, and dear affections ; and she will find that it is 
part of her privilege and right to partake of the mysteries 
and blessings of her husband's religion. Where there is a 
schism in one bed, there is a nursery of temptations, and 
love' is persecuted and in perpetual danger to be destroyed ; 
there dwell jealousies, and divided interests, and differing 
opinions, and continual disputes, and we cannot love them so 
well whom we believe to be less beloved of God; and it is 
ill uniting with a person, concerning whom my persuasion 
tells me that he is like to live in hell to eternal ages. 

2. The next line of the woman's duty is compliance, which 
St. Peter calls " the hidden man of the heart, the ornament 
of a meek and quiet spirit" (i Pet. iii, 4), and to it he opposes 
" the outward and pompous ornament of the body", concern- 



THE MARRIAGE RING. 



ing which, as there can be no particular measure set down to 
all persons, but the proportions were to be measured by the 
customs of wise people, the quality of the woman, and the 
desires of the man ; yet it is to be limited by Christian mo- 
desty, and the usages of the more excellent and severe ma- 
trons. Menander, in the comedy, brings in a man turning 
his wife from his house because she stained her hair yellow, 
which was then the beauty.* A wise woman should not 
paint A studious gallantry in clothes cannot make a wise 
man love his wife the better, t Decor occultus, et tecta venus- 
ias; that is the Christian woman's fineness ; " the hidden 
man of the heart", sweetness of manners, humble comport- 
ment, fair interpretation of all addresses, ready compliance, 
high opinion of him and mean of herself.t 

'Ev Koiv$ \vrrr}s rjdovrjs r' e^iv fxipos, "To partake secretly, and 
in her heart, of all his joys and sorrows", to believe him 
comely and fair, though the sun hath drawn a Cyprus over 
him ; for as marriages are not to be contracted by the hands 
and eye, but with reason and the hearts ; so are these judg- 



* Nw 8' epn aw' oXkqsv rwvdf r^v yvvaiKa yup 

TV (rc&typov' ov 2)€t ras rp/^as £av8&.s rroieii/. — Cleric. , p„ 25& 

f "Quid juvat ornato procedere, vita, capillo, 
Teque peregrinis vendere mimeribus, 
Naturaeque decus mercato perdere cultu, 

Nec sinere in propriis membra nitere bonis?" 

Property i, el. I. 

X " Malo Venusinam, quam te, Cornelia, mater 
Gracchorum, si cum magnis virtutibus arTers 
Grande supercilium, et numeras in dote triumphos. " 

J 2 17 •en. Sat. vi, 1 42. 



262 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



ments to be made by the mind, not by the sight :* and dia- 
monds cannot make the woman virtuous, nor him to value 
her who sees her put them off then, when charity and mo- 
desty are her brightest ornaments. And, indeed, those hus- 
bands that are pleased with indecent gaieties of their wives, 
are like fishes taken with ointments and intoxicating baits, 
apt and easy for sport and mockery, but useless for food ; 
and when Circe had turned Ulysses's companions into hogs 
and monkeys, by pleasures and the enchantments of her 
bravery and luxury, they were no longer useful to her, she 
knew not what to do with them ; but on wise Ulysses she 
was continually enamoured. Indeed, the outward ornament 
is fit to take fools, but they are not worth the taking ; but 
she that hath a wise husband, must entice him to an eternal 
dearness by the veil of modesty and the grave robes of chas- 
tity, the ornament of meekness, and the jewels of faith and 
charity ; she must have no fucus but blushings, her brightness 
must be purity, and she must shine round about with sweet- 
nesses and friendship, and she shall be pleasant while she 
lives, and desired when she dies. If not, her grave shall be 
full of rottenness and dishonour, and her memory shall be 
worse after she is dead :f " after she is dead' 7 , for that will be 
the end of all merry meetings ; and I choose this to be the 
last advice to both. 

3. " Remember the days of darkness, for they are many" ; 



€v/xop<pov zlvoll rtf 76 vovv H€KT7)p.ei/7j' ov yhp oipda^fxbs to Kpivou i(TTlV 
a\\a vovs, 

t Sapph. apud Plat. Precept, conjug. 



THE MARRIAGE RING. 



263 



the joys of the bridal chamber are quickly past, and the 
remaining portion of the state is a dull progress, without 
variety of joys, but not without the change of sorrows ; but 
that portion that shall enter into the grave must be eternal. 
It is fit that I should infuse a bunch of myrrh into the fes- 
tival goblet, and, after the Egyptian manner, serve up a dead 
man's bones at a feast : I will only show it, and take it away 
again ; it will make the wine bitter, but wholesome. But 
those married pairs that live as remembering they must part 
again, and give an account how they treat themselves and 
each other, shall, at that day of their death, be admitted to 
glorious espousals ; and when they shall live again, be mar- 
ried to their Lord, and partake of his glories, with Abraham 
and Joseph, St. Peter and St. Paul, and all the married 
saints. " All those things that now please us shall pass from 
us, or we from them"; but those things that concern the 
other life, are permanent as the numbers of eternity : and 
although at the resurrection there shall be no relation of hus- 
band and wife, and no marriage shall be celebrated but the 
marriage of the Lamb ; yet then shall be remembered how 
men and women passed through this state which is a type of 
that, and from this sacramental union all holy pairs shall 
pass to the spiritual and eternal, where love shall be their 
portion, and joys shall crown their heads, and they shall lie 
in the bosom of Jesus, and in the heart of God, to eternal 
ages. 



THE SWEETNESS OF LIFE. 



flHRISTIANITY", said Novalis (and it is curious 
that some silly democrats have denied this evi- 
dent fact, and have, therefore, tried to abolish the 
faith), "is the root of all democracy, the highest 
fact in the rights of man". Its origin is with the common 
people. The Abbe Constant, in his Gospel of Liberty, seems 
also to have so vividly perceived this great truth that in 1848 
he stirred people, from whom the Bible had been shut out, to 
revolution, by translating and popularising some portions of 
the New Testament which, better understood by us, are poli- 
tically innocuous. This is worth while remembering when 
some people rave about religion as aiding tyrants. It does 
no such thing ; it makes all men equal ; and it builds itself 
upon the principle of fraternal love. 

But Novalis, a remarkable thinker for so young a man, 
said more than this ; and it is to his last sentence, introduced 
by his first, that we wish especially to call attention. It is 
very remarkable ; and, to say the truth, we are sorry to see 
the primary, and certainly least intellectual, meaning of it 
often insisted upon by many who never heard of the German 
metaphysician. 

"The Christian religion is especially remarkable, moreover, 




THE SWEETNESS OF LIFE. 



265 



as it so decidedly lays claim to mere good will in man, to his 
essential temper, and values this independently of all culture 
and manifestation. It stands in opposition to science, to art, 
and properly to enjoyment". As Carlyle takes care to note, 
in his review of Novalis, the words put in italics were 
italicised by the author. He wished to impress upon us this 
fact, that Christianity forbids to us, as much as anything, a 
life of sensuous enjoyment. It is a faith of aspiration: — 

"Our little lives are kept in equipoise, 
By struggles of two opposite desires ; 
The struggle of the instinct that enjoys, 
And the far nobler instinct that aspires." 

Therefore, against finery, beauty, art, music, and all such like 
ornaments and delights of life — against wines, meats, gay 
processions, place, power, intellect, genius itself, the spirit of 
the ascetic rears itself. 

It is as curious as it is sad to reflect how universal this 
notion is that it is wrong to find sweetness in life, and that 
even beauty, and grace, and prettiness are something, rather 
than otherwise, unlawful. Madame de Stael seems to think 
that God has clothed only the useless flowers with beauty, 
while the useful fruits of the earth He has left naked and bare; 
and she indignantly says, in a passage we translate thus 
lamely, "How comes it that to deck the altar of Divinity, we 
rather seek the useless flowers than the necessary productions 
which sustain life ? How comes it that that which serves to 
sustain our life has less dignity than the flowers which serve 
no purpose (les flenrs sans but)? It is because the beautiful 
recalls an existence both immortal and divine, the memory 
and the regret of which live at the same time in our hearts". 



266 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



In that case flowers would be of some use, and De Stael had 
no right to call them useless. They, too, are the angels or 
messengers of God, and do in some fashion appeal to us. 
Man does not live by bread alone : the buxom and all-em- 
bracing air ; the warm breath of summer ; the pregnant 
earth, ripe with the crops which sustain, and the flowers 
which adorn ; the ever changing cloud-land of the sky, 
floating above our heads — all these, though some may be as 
evanescent as a moment, a day, a month, or a year, teach the 
mind through the eye, and soften the heart of man. Jean 
Paul was wiser than De Stael when he remarked, "All beau- 
ties serve each other without jealousy ; for to conquer man's 
heart is the common purpose of all." Moreover, it is foolish 
for any one who is not a Parisienne, and over fond of gay 
flowers and colours, to say that the corn and the potato are 
common fruits enough, the apple and the plum are not in 
their flowers beautiful. The slate or lavender-coloured petals 
of the potato-flower, varied with the bright-yellow pistils, 
make it a most beautiful object, of rare and agreeable hue, 
and one often imitated to wear in the bonnets of our richest 
and noblest women. The apple-tree blossom is as charming 
as anything in spring or summer ; nor does it consist with 
our knowledge to say that roses and lilies, and the most 
gorgeous of our exotics, are useless. Science and commerce 
have found out their qualities. It is as foolish to endeavour, 
as it is impossible to succeed in ascertaining what may or 
may not serve God's purpose and man's necessities. The 
root of the American May-apple was only the other day dis- 
covered to possess all those valuable qualities which mercury 
possesses, and to be a thousand times less noxious or dan- 
gerous in its use. 



THE SWEETNESS OF LIFE. 



267 



Madame de Stael merely put in a poetic form the constant 
feeling which seems to possess mankind. Every now and 
then there comes a wild and bold man into the world, who 
cries in the wilderness like John the Baptist, and whose food 
is of the poorest, while his garments are the mere spoils of 
beasts ; and people go out eagerly to hear this man. There 
is something strong and great in his poverty. They do not 
flock out to see a reed shaken by the wind, but to see one who 
says something, and knows what he says. They do not come 
out to look at a man clothed in purple and fine linen — such 
men are in kings' houses. We do not care to see a man who 
fares sumptuously every day; but, one hardened with toil, 
worn with thought, grey in his prime of life, his face heavy with 
bending at prayer or work ; that is the man for us. And he 
generally convinces the world of sin, of luxury, of love of ease. 
"You have been too well off; come, be up and doing", he 
says. "You were not made to be pleased, but teased. Take 
up the heavy burden of life : unless it is serious to you, 
unless you feel under the pressure of duty, you had best not 
be at all." 

People listen to this man and believe him, for each of us 
has a secret idea that what some consider pleasant doctrine 
is not true doctrine. Just what everybody thinks, say the 
Reviewers, is sure to be wrong. That which is common and 
well-known, and all over the world, of course cannot be true ; 
and then they gravely shake their heads and look wise. 
What business has so miserable a fellow as man to enjoy life? 
He was not made for pleasure, but for pain. Twist whips 
with bits of wire or steel ; put peas in your shoes, and 
hobble over life's highway, but enjoy not life. Pain, say some, 



268 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



is pleasing to the Deity ; man was made to mourn, and not to 
be happy. Following out this doctrine, how many shut them- 
selves out from all the little happinesses of life, and think that 
they are doing God service! How many really religious 
people are of a melancholy temperament, and trouble them- 
selves without a cause ! How many insist that all time that 
is spent in enjoyment is merely time thrown away ! How 
many set their faces against art, music, and beauty! The 
spirit is the same now as it was in the middle ages : youth is 
regarded chiefly as a period of temptation ; and age, when 
the natural sadness of man is increased, is spent, not in 
mourning over lost pleasures, but in regretting that such 
pleasures ever existed. 

And yet some of the wisest and best of men have shown us 
that life is intended at least for moderate enjoyment. Paley 
has employed a very noble chapter in showing that all crea- 
tion does in its way rejoice. Birds, animals, insects, and fish 
seem to live a life of temperate enjoyment. Man, the chief 
of all, has surely no right to withhold all such enjoyment from 
himself. "Pleasant objects," says the author of the Anatomy 
of Melancholy, "are infinite, whether they be such as have 
life, or be without life ; inanimate are countries, provinces, 
towers, towns, and cities ; we see a fair island by description, 
when we see it not." And again, "These things in themselves 
are pleasing and good ; singular ornaments, necessary, 
comely, and fit to be had ; but when we fix an immoderate 
eye, and dote on them overmuch, this pleasure may turn to 
pain, bring much sorrow and discontent unto us, work our 
final overthrow, and cause sorrow in the end." 

And some there are whom this suspicion of an after-punish- 



THE SWEETNESS OF LIFE. 269 

ment for present enjoyment seems to haunt through life. 
Why such a feeling should be mistaken for religion, it is hard 
to say. For children to move gaily about, or to laugh or play 
during Sunday, is a great sin with such. One was heard 
blaming himself because he had enjoyed a good dinner. 
Fasting is undertaken by too many, not as a discipline for 
the soul by the action it has upon the body, but because it 
punishes the body and makes it feel uncomfortable. Chris- 
tians are not by any means singular in this : in the Ramadan, 
the month of fasting, the Mohammedan saints imperil their 
health, and render themselves very naturally cross and un- 
pleasant to their neighbours, all the time believing that they 
are doing God and his servant, the Prophet, good service. 
How Hindoo fanatics punish themselves, lacerating their 
flesh and starving their bodies, is well-known. Like the 
priests of Baal, they cut themselves with knives, they drive 
hooks into their backs, and, hanging by a cord, are swung 
whirling into the air, and thereby acquire a reputation for 
great holiness. If God does not punish them in this world, 
nay, even if he only troubles them moderately, they do it for 
him, under the notion, when or how conceived it is impos- 
sible to say, that if they render this life thoroughly uncom- 
fortable to them, they will be rewarded by a keen enjoyment 
in the next. Even the honest love which we bear to our 
wives, children, and friends, is turned by many to a snare and 
a stumbling-block. When mothers dote upon their children, 
some people will tell them that for a punishment those chil- 
dren God will take away ; and this belief is very common in 
the lower and middle classes; so much so that Dickens, 
without apparently suspecting the deep thought hidden in the 



270 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



saying, makes Mrs. Kenwigs burst into tears when she sees 
her five ill-favoured, vulgar children, dressed in their best and 
sitting in a row, and exclaim that "they are too beautiful to 
live". The old superstition haunts us still ; we talk oftentimes 
as if God delighted not only in the death of a sinner, but in 
making him unhappy and miserable all his life. It was 
against this that Shelley thundered in one of the strongest 
passages ever written. "There are three words", he says, 
"that tyrants use to frighten the world with — God, Heaven, 
and Hell": 

"A vengeful, pitiless and Almighty fiend, 
Whose mercy is a nick -name for the rage 
Of tameless tigers hungering for blood; 
Hell a red gulf of everlasting fire, 
Where poisonous and undying worms prolong 
Eternal misery to those hapless slaves 
Whose life has been a penance for its crimes ; 
And Heaven, a meed for those who dare belie 
Their human nature." 

A more pernicious notion does not exist. Some of our organs 
and appetites were evidently created to give us pleasure. To 
feed when one is thoroughly hungry, is not more necessary 
than it is pleasant. To rest after due labour, nay, to labour 
after rest, to run, to move, to wash oneself — when in health, to 
sing, to look abroad at the sun and trees — all these give us 
unspeakable pleasure, and pleasure, too, of a pure kind, which 
cannot be taken away from us. 

There are many fair and reasonable objects for love and 
enjoyment. This world is by no means without comfort; and 
the great beauty of knowledge is, that it so widens and en- 
larges our minds, that the more we know, the more pleasure, 



THE SWEETNESS OF LIFE. 



innocent pleasure, we have. The mind is like a microscope 
— the greater power it has, the better it can see what is good 
and beautiful ; and with great minds that which is good alone 
is beautiful. So the Epicureans placed pleasure as the 
highest good ; but the highest pleasure was the greatest 
virtue. "I ever loved, as thou knowest, Marcus Brutus", 
wrote Cicero of one of the foremost conspirators against the 
despotism of Caesar, "for his great understanding, singular 
honesty and constancy, and his sweet manners ; and believe 
me there is nothing so amiable and fair as virtue". Un- 
doubtedly there is great truth in the tirades against mere en- 
joyment and pleasure. Not in seeking those only should we 
spend our lives; but in this and everything we should logically 
seek out the diffe7'entia. All pleasure is not sinful, but all 
sensual and low pleasures are, when indulged in for their own 
sake. When a man like Darteneuf gives his life to the one 
object of enjoying a ham pie, he is not only wicked, but 
foolish ; but a good man may enjoy the ham pie without any 
sin, when it comes in his way naturally. To wade through 
blood and slaughter to a throne is very shockingly reprehen- 
sible ; but common reason tells us that when one is born to a 
throne, his plain duty is to wear his honours meekly, and to 
do as much good as he can in his way. Godfrey of Bouillon, 
crowned King of Jerusalem, would not wear his crown of gold 
in the city where his Saviour had worn one of thorns, and 
people can well admire that sacred modesty ; for a Monarch 
to lay aside his robes on state occasions is always suspicious. 
People who go out of the way to seek extra humiliation, are 
grievously to be suspected of enjoying the humiliation, and, 
like the man in the farce, "liking to be despised". Pleasures 



272 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



have come to be regarded as sinful by those who apply par- 
ticular rules to general cases. Some pleasures, some pride, 
some dignities, and some enjoyments, are no doubt sinful, but 
not all. Nature, the wide and open book of God, is the best 
commentary on his written injunctions. He has laid down 
no laws for us save ten plain Commandments : and these by 
the Saviour were abbreviated into two. For every man is a 
law unto himself ; and feeling this, if he looks wisely abroad, 
he will find that life is given for sensible and true pleasure, 
even in the midst of trials. Truly of such it may be said, — 

' ' He feels, although no tongue can prove, 
That ever} 7 cloud that spreads above 
And veileth Love, itself is Love." 



NEARER TO GOD* 



HAT, is it in our will and power to return ? or 
doth God command that which is impossible for 
us to perform? Truth it is, "All our sufficiency 
is of God. Of ourselves we are not able to think 
a good thought." "Without me", saith Christ, "you are able 
to do nothing." No doubt we have power and freewill to 
run from God ; but to draw near unto Him is his grace and gift. 
" Freewill hath in itself ability enough to evil, but not to 
good." He commandeth us, therefore, to do that which of 
ourselves we are not able to do, that, seeing our want, we 
may crave his grace and help, which will enable us to draw 
near unto Him. This grace is not in vain : by it we are 
that we are, when we be, as we should be, near unto Him. If 
he that commandeth us do not reach us his hand when we 
are bidden to draw near, we go farther off. " But let God 
give that which He commandeth, and then command what- 
soever He will." Turn thou us, O Lord, and we shall be 
turned." If He convert us not, we shall remain as we are, 
or rather proceed to worse. " No man cometh unto me," 



* "Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Cleanse 
your hands, ye sinners ; and purge your hearts. " — St. Ja?nes iv, -8, 9. 

T 




274 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



saith Christ, " except the Father draw him." The spirit and 
grace of God, of untoward and unwilling, maketh forward 
and ready; and so, by the efficacy of the Spirit being 
changed, we which were far off are drawn near. 

The way to draw near unto God our apostle setteth down 
at large : " Cleanse your hands, purge your hearts, be afflicted, 
mourn, weep : let your laughter be turned into sorrow, and 
your joy into grief. Humble yourselves in the sight of the 
Lord." Isaiah the prophet teacheth the selfsame in few 
words : " Let the wicked forsake his ways, and the unrighteous 
his own imaginations, and return unto the Lord". St. Paul 
meaneth the same thing when he speaketh of " denying un- 
godliness and worldly lusts, and living soberly, righteously, 
and godly, in this present world". But our Saviour Christ 
shutteth up the whole in one word, — " Repent". 

The order of our repentance set down by the blessed apostle 
is this : — First of all, we must remove evil from us. " Cleanse 
your hands; purge your hearts"; wash and scour both body 
and soul : make yourselves clean, both from outward and in- 
ward sins. For it is not sufficient to abstain from evil in our 
external actions, but we must also chase from our hearts evil 
cogitations. The proud Pharisee seemed to have a pure life, 
but he had a polluted heart. If the fountain and spring be 
not pure and sweet, the rivers that issue from it must needs 
be unsavoury. " From the heart there proceed evil cogita- 
tions, murders, adulteries, fornications, false witnessings, re- 
vilings." These are the fruits of an impure heart ; and these 
are the works of unclean fingers. The hand is but the 
servant, to execute that which the heart hath devised. It was 
folly in Pilate to wash his hands, in token of his purity, 



NEARER TO GOD. 275 

when his heart had consented to shed the blood of that in- 
nocent. 

The hand hath sundry significations in the Scriptures. 
Sometime it is taken for counsel, as " Is not the hand of 
Joab with thee in all these things?" And again : " They met 
together to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel had be- 
fore decreed to be done." Evil hands are the breeders of all 
mischievous practices ; but such counsel is commonly worst 
to the giver. David prayed to God to confound the trai- 
torous counsel of Ahithophel, who conspired against his mas- 
ter and king. And it came to pass that his fingers did knit 
a rope about his own traitorous throat, to strangle himself 
withal. It is written of David, that " he fed his people in the 
singleness of his heart, and led them forth in the discretion 
of his hands." The sword of government is an edged tool : 
it requireth the hand of wise counsel discreetly to wield it. 
Rehoboam, being guided by the unwise hands of those lusty 
young counsellors, who advised him to oppress his people 
with heavy burdens, to bring them into bondage, and to give 
them short and sharp answers, wrought in the people discon- 
tented minds, alienated their hearts from their prince ; which 
in the end was the tearing of his kingdom into pieces. Of 
twelve parts he lost ten and better. 

The word hand is also taken for cruelty and oppression, 
because the hand is the instrument to work these things. 
"Your hands", saith the prophet, "are full of blood." Such 
hands had Herod. And such have they, not only which 
kill, but which hate, malice, and slander their brethren : for 
" he which hateth his brother is a man-slayer." 

Finally, because the hand worketh most of all the members 



2 7 6 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



of the body in the necessary actions of man's life, therefore 
all pollutions in our outward deeds are contained in the 
name of unclean hands. 

The slanderer and libeller hath bloody hands : his tongue 
cutteth like a sharp razor ; his pen writeth in blood. For he 
killeth whom he defameth, 

The oppressor with his bloody fingers pulleth the skin off 
the people's backs. yEmilius, being placed by Tiberius 
Csesar over Egypt, oppressed the Egyptians with great and 
unwonted exactions. The emperor, hearing of it, was wroth, 
and wrote unto him, " that he would have his sheep to be 
shorn, but not flayed." Such oppressors of the people greatly 
wrong the prince, who, being faultless, yet is forced to bear 
the burden of that blame. Such gleaners of other men's 
goods, and pillagers, and purloiners, although they join 
house to house, yet, the foundation of them being laid in 
blood, that building shall not continue. " That which cometh 
ill shall go worse away : they lose as much in their con- 
sciences as they gain in their coffers." 

Rewards, likewise, do not only blind the eyes, and pervert 
the words, but they also defile the hands of the wise and 
righteous. All such as enter into the Church of God by 
corrupt means, defile their hands and destroy their souls. 
"That", saith St. Ambrose, "which the man gave when he 
was ordained bishop was but gold ; and that which he lost 
was his soul." 

The usurer doth so mire his fingers in money, that with 
his foul filthy fists he can never take hold upon the taber- 
nacle of God. 

It were infinite to go through all particulars. We defile 



NEARER TO GOD. 



277 



our hands, whensoever our actions are corrupted, infected, 
and polluted with sin; seem they unto us never so perfect, 
holy, and good. Things highly esteemed before men are 
found to be as vanity before God. Our very righteousness 
in his sight is polluted. Yea, many times, even when we do 
good, then we do ill : in our prayer by coldness, in our alms- 
deeds by vain-glory, we defile the hands which we lift up 
unto God, and put forth unto men. These foul hands our 
apostle biddeth us wash : " Cleanse your hands, O sinners." 

And as we must wash our foul hands, so must we purge 
our infected hearts. " The heart of man is not searched by 
man. Who knoweth it? Only God is the searcher of hearts." 
The hypocrite seemeth holy in the face of the world, but his 
inward man is poisoned with sin. Of men he is commended 
and reverenced, but his false impure heart the Lord doth 
abhor. Thy heart must be purged, before thy hands can be 
washed to any purpose. For as all impurity riseth from the 
heart, and so polluteth the hands, so must first thy heart be 
purified, and that will make all clean : "If thine eye be right, 
all thy body will be clear", saith our Saviour. The stomach 
well confirmed, all the body will be in good estate. But our 
hearts are impure ; neither can any man say, " My heart is 
clean." The Pharisee said that he was righteous, but he 
looked only upon his hands, and did not see into his proud 
and malicious heart. The penitent publican wisely knocked 
upon his heart ; for there lay the disease. Every sin breedeth 
in the heart : from thence it hath his original ; and every 
heart is possessed with sundry sins, and hath need carefully 
to be purged. 

Pride polluteth man's heart. This venom poisoned the 



278 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



heart of the great angel of God; of Adam, the most perfect 
man of God ; of Nebuchadnezzar, the great and mighty em- 
peror ; of Uzziah, the king. Their hearts were lifted up, and 
therefore God threw them down. "Pride is the first and 
greatest sin," and, therefore, with chiefest care to be shunned. 
This hidden poison cannot be smothered : it will burst forth 
into the outward parts. It will appear in thy countenance, in 
thy pace, and in thy apparel. Monstrous attire doth show a 
monstrous mind. A mincing, tripping pace, as the prophet 
doth note, argueth a proud and an unstable heart. A lofty 
countenance, a stretched-out neck, and a wandering eye, are 
the pictures of a haughty and a wanton mind. 

St. Paul hath made mention of three great and pestilent 
infections of the heart. The first is banqueting and drunken- 
ness. "Beware your hearts be not overcharged with surfeiting 
and drunkenness." Meat and drink are ordained for man. 
and not man for them : we should eat to live, and not live to 
eat. Nature is content with little, and by much the health is 
impaired. A full belly dulleth the senses ; and the more 
wine, the less wit. The judgment of Plato is, that he which 
fitleth his belly twice a-day shall never prove but a sot. Too 
much drink laid Noah naked, and made him ridiculous to his 
own son. "Drunkenness is a fawning devil, a sweet poison, 
a pleasant sin ; which whosoever hath, wanteth himself : and 
whosoever committeth, doth not commit sin, but is altogether 
very sin itself." Let not your hearts, therefore, be oppressed 
and defiled with surfeiting, nor with drunkenness. 

Another poison of the heart is chambering and wantonness. 
The former breedeth the latter. And "where fulness is, there 
filth reigneth." These are commonly linked together ; and 



NEARER TO GOD. 



279 



where the one is near, the other is not far off. Ezekiel, the 
prophet, addeth another cause of this vice, and that is idle- 
ness. A full belly and an idle body make an unchaste heart. 
David taking an afternoon's vacation, and walking idle in his 
gallery, fell shamefully away from his former purity, and 
dangerously from God. Idleness and riotousness are the fuel 
of uncleanness, which St. Jerome considering, breaketh out 
into these words — "O infernal fury, the matter whereof is 
gluttony ; pride, the flame ; the sparks, lewd words ; the 
smoke, infamy, the ashes, impurity, the last end, hell 
misery." Our bodies are made unto sanctiflcation, and not 
to fornication : let us use them to that end to which they were 
created, that we may bring them to that joyful end of eternal 
blessedness. 

The third bane of the heart is emulation and contention. 
"Let nothing be done through contention and vainglory." 
Pride causeth emulation, and of emulation cometh strife ; so 
that the cursed generation of vice is fruitful. Pride made the 
devilish angel envy that his Lord and God should be above 
him ; it made Adam desire to be as full of knowledge as his 
Creator ; Absalom to emulate his father, and to thirst after 
his kingdom. Caesar was so proud, that he could not abide 
a superior ; Pompey could not bear an equal. Korah, 
Dathan, and Abiram, in the pride of their hearts, sought to 
displace Moses and Aaron, the chief magistrate and the chief 
minister. They set down a handsome platform of equality ; 
and many of the multitude allowed of it, as well-pleased with 
a popular estate, where the worst of them might be as good 
as the best. But God brought their device and themselves 
to nought. This emulation is ever contentious, and conten- 



28o 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



tion bringeth dissipation. A kingdom divided will not endure. 
"Our God is the God of peace, and not of contention." In 
peace then we shall have safety, and be followers of our God. 
We ought, therefore, to be mild and quiet, like sheep ; and 
not contentious and biting, like dogs. "Whilst one of you 
doth bite another, take heed ye be not devoured one of 
another." Therefore, let every man be content with his own 
estate. For God hath ordained distinct estates, and by his 
providence men are placed in them. Pride, surfeiting, and 
drunkenness, chambering and wantonness, emulation and 
contention, are infections of the heart, and dangerously defile 
the same : we must purge our hearts of them. 

Thus, if we with a simple eye behold our hands, and take 
a view of our souls, we shall easily espy foul fingers and pol- 
luted hearts. We are bid by our apostle to wash the one and 
purge the other ; but this is not in the ability of sinful man : 
it is the work of our gracious God. Christ is the only physi- 
cian to heal this our disease. Only God remitteth and easeth 
us of our sin. Therefore our defiled hands and depraved 
hearts cannot otherwise be washed and made clean, but only 
with the blood of that immaculate Lamb. For so the Scrip- 
ture witnesseth: "The blood of Jesus Christ doth make us 
clean from all sin." " If he wash us, we shall be whiter than 
snow." Otherwise our filthy sin will stick to us for ever. And 
thus we see that evil must be taken away from all parts, both 
inward and outward : our hands must be cleansed, and our 
hearts purged. This is the first part of our repentance. 

But this will never be done, unless we conceive unfeigned 
and hearty sorrow for sin. Wherefore it followeth in the 
words of the apostle : " Be afflicted, be sorry, and weep : let 



NEARER TO GOD. 



281 



your laughter be turned into mourning, and your joy into 
heaviness." "It is heard," saith the apostle to the Corinthians, 
"and that for certainty, that there is fornication among you, 
and such fornication as is not once named among the Gen- 
tiles. And ye are puffed up, and have not rather sorrowed." 
They showed, as he thought, little token of an intent to cleanse 
themselves, who saw such filth, and laughed at it. If we have 
purpose indeed to draw near unto the Lord, our hearts must 
be resolved into tears, and our hands washed in the water of 
our eyes. Have we sinned with David ? Let us oxy peccavi 
with as grieved a heart as David did. Have we denied Christ 
with Peter, not with our lips, but in our lives ? Let us then 
weep for it with Peter bitterly. Have we in transgressing 
followed the wanton steps of Mary Magdalene ? Let us fol- 
low her steps also in pouring out tears plentifully for our 
offences. Have we wandered, and gone astray with the pro- 
digal child ? Let us with him likewise turn into ourselves, 
and behold our defiled souls : let us with him return home at 
length with a contrite heart, bursting out into that confession 
full of sorrow : " Father, I have sinned against heaven and 
before thee." "A bruised and humbled heart, O God, thou 
wilt not despise." " Repent you, therefore, of your sins," saith 
Peter, "that your sins may be done away." Let your tears 
show that ye do repent, and let your lives declare that ye are 
converted. "When evils past are bewailed, and things be- 
wailed are not committed again, this," saith Ambrose, "is to 
repent. It is a vain repentance which is by and by sullied 
again by transgressing. Tears avail nothing, if we fall afresh 
into our sins. It is bootless to ask pardon for evil deeds, and 
when we have done, to do them again." This is plain : "The 



282 



THE SILEXT HOUR. 



dog to his vomit, and the swine to his mire." Let us, there- 
fore, wholly cast away all impiety and worldly concupiscence: 
let us change this idle, vain, wanton, and profane life, with 
sober, righteous, and godly behaviour. " Let your laughter 
be turned into mourning, and your joy into heaviness." For 
our God seeth all our thoughts : he heareth all our words : he 
beholdeth all our works. There is no wantonness, nor 
wickedness, but our God, who doth hate it, seeth it (the Lord 
be merciful unto us) : yea, our just God, who will judge us 
according unto our deeds, seeth it. O Lord, be merciful unto 
us. O Lord, who shall stand in that most dreadful day ? 
Lord, grant us true repentance, that, forsaking ourselves and 
detesting our sins, we may fly so unto thy mercy, that we 
may taste of thy tender compassions, and not receive accord- 
ing to thy justice and our most sinful deserts. " Enter not, 
Lord, into judgment with thy servants." O let us at the 
length wash our hands and purge our hearts. Let us mourn 
and bewail our sins ; that so, being clean, we may approach 
and come near unto our God. 

The only thing which hindereth and keepeth us back from 
this is that ovenveening which we have of ourselves. 
Whereby it cometh to pass that, when we should be sorrow- 
ful, we are puffed up. The apostle, therefore, to meet with 
this fault, and remove this let, addeth: "Cast down your- 
selves : humble yourselves in the sight of God." " The country 
which we seek for is on high, but the way is below that 
leadeth unto it. He that seeketh the one, must not refuse 
the other." The publican, humbling himself before God, drew 
near unto him, and was received. To whom hath God re- 
gard ? on whom doth he look ? to whom is he near ? " Even 



NEARER TO GOD. 283 

unto him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and that 
trembleth at my words," saith the Lord. Manasses, notwith- 
standing his idolatrous sinfulness, yet by humility drew near 
unto God, and found his saving mercy. And all that are or 
shall be his must learn of him to be mild, as he is mild ; to 
humble themselves unto Christ's mercy, who humbled himself 
unto man's cruelty. 

What hath man wherein of right he can boast himself, or 
whereof he may be proud ? It is God who hath given us 
those good gifts which we have : we have them not of our- 
selves ; and He hath given them us not to pride ourselves in 
them, and so to make them ill, but humbly to be thankful for 
them, and to dispose of them well to his glory, knowing and 
remembering that we must straitly reckon for them. " Render 
an account," will one day be a fearful speech. For why ? 
Doth thy nobility, power, and authority lift up thy mind ? 
These are given thee from above. " By me kings reign : by 
me princes bear rule." "There is no power but of God." He 
that setteth up, can likewise cast down. Nay, "He hath cast 
down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble 
and meek." And what He hath done once, He can do again. 
The highest place is not the sweetest nor the safest place : 
much authority is cumbered with many cares. Such as have 
entered into a great charge must enter into a great account. 
And greater cause have they to fear their reckoning, than to 
be proud of their ruling. The more that God hath lift thee 
up, the more thou oughtest to humble thyself before him, lest 
he eternally cast thee down. 

A Christian heart must be an humble heart ; and the way 
to humble ourselves is to know ourselves. For if we did look 



284 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



upon our black feet, our fair peacock feathers no doubt would 
soon fall down. If we did cast our eyes upon our foul hands 
and polluted hearts ; if we did sift ourselves, and search our 
souls, and see how ugly we had made ourselves in the sight 
of God, having blotted out his gracious image in us, and 
clothed ourselves with the maculate coat of sin, the reward 
whereof is that eternal death of hell, this sight would terrify 
us, this consideration would pull down our haughtiness, and 
cause us to mislike and utterly deny ourselves, and fly only 
unto God's mercy. Our cheerful countenance would be 
changed into a heavy, our mirth into sighing, our pastime 
into prayer. It would make our sorrowful hearts to water 
our wanton eyes with bitter tears. It would cast down our 
big and high looks flat upon the earth, and turn our curled, 
frizzled, writhen hair into a baser use, even into a towel to 
wipe the feet of Christ withal. In the stead of monstrous ap- 
parel, we would put on sackcloth and ashes, and cry with St. 
Paul, " Miserable man that I am, who shall deliver me ?" 
This sight of ourselves would humble us in the sight of God. 
This humility would cause us to draw near unto him : if we 
drew near unto him, he would draw near unto us : if we did 
cast ourselves down, he would mercifully lift us up. 

For so it followeth in the last part. This commodity re- 
maineth to such as in such humble sort draw near unto Him. 
"He will draw near unto you: He will lift you up." If we 
sinners and double-hearted men wash and purge our hands 
and hearts, if by faith and unfeigned repentance we draw near 
unto Him, He will meet us in the way, embrace us with His 
arms of mercy, kiss us with the kiss of peace and reconcilia- 
tion, put on our spousal ring upon our finger, as fully restored 



NEARER TO GOD. 285 

unto our gracious and blessed spouse in that perfect spiritual 
marriage. He is as ready to forgive our sins as we are to ask 
forgiveness : if we turn unto Him by repentance, He doubtless 
will turn unto us in mercy. " He will refresh us ; and we shall 
find eternal rest for our wearied souls." Be our sins as red as 
scarlet is red, He will make them as white as snow. Though 
they now press sore upon us, yet He will remove them as far 
from us as the east is from the west : yea, he will drown them 
in the very bottom of the sea ; He will wholly blot them out of 
his book, forgive them, and forget them for ever. This our 
gracious God hath promised : this, our true God, who cannot 
deceive, will perform. Lastly, if, with penitent and humbled 
hearts for our sins, we cast ourselves down before God, our 
God will lift us up. If we condemn ourselves with trust in His 
mercy, our God will justify us. If we die unto sin, we shall 
be raised up unto happy righteousness. The more we 
humble ourselves, the more He will raise us : not for our own 
deserts, but for his promise' sake, of free mercy, and his Son's 
complete merits, to whom, with the Father, and the Holy 
Ghost our Sanctifier and Comforter, be all honour and praise 
now and for ever. 



THE SANCTITY OF HOME. 



CANNOT but think it an evil sign of a people 
when their houses are built to last for one gene- 
ration only. There is a sanctity in a good man's 
house which cannot be renewed in every tene- 
ment that rises on its ruins: and I believe that good men 
would generally feel this ; and that having spent their lives 
happily and honourably, they would be grieved at the close of 
them to think that the place of their earthly abode, which had 
seen, and seemed almost to sympathise in, all their honour, 
their gladness, or their suffering, — that this, with all the record 
it bare of them, and all of material things that they had loved 
and ruled over, and set the stamp of themselves upon — was 
to be swept away, as soon as there was room made for them 
in the grave ; that no respect was to be shown to it, no affec- 
tion felt for it, no good to be drawn from it by their children; 
that though there was a monument in the church, there was 
no warm monument in the hearth and house to them ; that 
all that they ever treasured was despised, and the places that 
had sheltered and comforted them were dragged down to the 
dust. I say that a good man would fear this ; and that, far 
more, a good son, a noble descendant, would fear doing it to 
his fathers house. I say that, if men lived like men indeed, 




THE SANCTITY OF HOME. 



287 



their houses would be temples — temples which we should 
hardly dare to injure, and in which it would make us holy to 
be permitted to live ; and there must be a strange dissolution 
of natural affection, a strange unthankfulness for all that 
homes have given and parents taught, a strange consciousness 
that we have been unfaithful to our fathers' honour, or that 
our own lives are not such as would make our dwellings 
sacred to our children, when each man would fain build to 
himself, and build for the little revolution of his own life only. 
And I look upon those pitiful concretions of lime and clay 
which spring up in mildewed forwardness out of the kneaded 
fields about our capital — upon those thin tottering founda- 
tionless shells of splintered wood and imitated stone — upon 
those gloomy rows of formalised minuteness, alike without 
difference and without fellowship, as solitary as similar — not 
merely with the careless disgust of an offended eye, not 
merely with sorrow for a desecrated landscape, but with a 
painful foreboding that the roots of our natural greatness 
must be deeply cankered when they are thus loosely struck 
in their native ground ; that those comfortless and unhonoured 
dwellings are the signs of a great and spreading spirit of 
popular discontent ; that they mark the time when every 
man's aim is to be in some more elevated sphere than his 
natural one, and every man's past life is his habitual scorn ; 
when men build in the hope of leaving the places they have 
built, and live in the hope of forgetting the years that they 
have lived ; when the comfort, the peace, the religion of home 
have ceased to be felt ; and the crowded tenements of a 
struggling and restless population differ only from the tents of 
the Arab or the Gipsy by their less healthy openness to the 



2.83 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



air of heaven, and less happy choice of their spot of earth ; 
by their sacrifice of liberty without the gain of rest, and of 
stability without the luxury of change. 

This is no slight, no consequenceless evil ; it is ominous, 
infectious, and fecund of other fault and misfortune. When 
men do not love their hearths, nor reverence their thresholds, 
it is a sign that they have dishonoured both, and that 
they have never acknowledged the true universality of that 
Christian worship w T hich was indeed to supersede the idol- 
atry, but not the piety, of the pagan. Our God is a house- 
hold God, as well as a heavenly one ; He has an altar 
in every man's dwelling ; let men look to it when they rend 
it lightly and pour out its ashes. It is not a question of mere 
ocular delight, it is no question of intellectual pride, or of 
cultivated and critical fancy, how, and with what aspect of 
durability and of completeness, the domestic buildings of a 
nation shall be raised. It is one of those moral duties, not 
with more impunity to be neglected because the perception 
of them depends on a finely-toned and balanced conscien- 
tiousness, to build our dwellings with care, and patience, and 
fondness, and diligent completion, and with a view to their 
duration, at least for such a period as, in the ordinary course 
of national revolutions, might be supposed likely to extend to 
the entire alteration of the direction of local interests. This, 
at the least ; but it would be better if, in every possible in- 
stance, men built their own houses on a scale commensurate 
rather with their condition at the commencement, than their 
attainments at the termination, of their worldly career ; and 
built them to stand as long as human work at its strongest 
can be hoped to stand ; recording to their children what they 



THE SANCTITY OF HOME. 289 

had been, and from what, if so it had been permitted them, 
they had risen. And when houses are thus built, we may 
have that true domestic architecture, the beginning of all 
other, which does not disdain to treat with respect and 
thoughtfulness the small habitation as well as the large, and 
which invests with the dignity of contented manhood the 
narrowness of worldly circumstance. 

I look to this spirit of honourable, proud, peaceful self-pos- 
session, this abiding wisdom of contented life, as probably 
one of the chief sources of great intellectual power in all 
ages, and beyond dispute as the very primal source of the 
great architecture of old Italy and France. To this day, the 
interest of their fairest city depends, not on the isolated 
richness of palaces, but on the cherished and exquisite de- 
coration of even the smallest tenements of their proud pe- 
riods. The most elaborate piece of architecture in Venice 
is a small house at the head of the Grand Canal, consisting 
of a ground floor with two stories above, three windows in 
the first, and two in the second. Many of the most exquisite 
buildings are on the narrower canals, and of no larger dimen- 
sions. One of the most interesting pieces of fifteenth cen- 
tury architecture in North Italy, is a small house in a back 
street, behind the market-place of Vicenza ; it bears date 
1 48 1, and the motto, //. it 1 est. rose. sans, epine.j it has also 
only a ground floor and two stories, with three windows in 
each, separated by rich flower-work, and with balconies, sup- 
ported, the central one by an eagle with open wings, the 
lateral ones by winged griffins standing on cornucopias. The 
idea that a house must be large in order to be well-built, is 
altogether of modern growth, and is parallel with the idea, 

u 



290 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



that no picture can be historical, except of a size admitting 
figures larger than life. 

I would have, then, our ordinary dwelling-houses built to 
last, and built to be lovely : as rich and full of pleasantness 
as may be, within and without ; with what degree of likeness 
to each other in style and manner, I will say presently, under 
another head ; but at all events, with such differences as 
might suit and express each man's character and occupation, 
and partly his history. This right over the house, I conceive, 
belongs to its first builder, and is to be respected by his 
children ; and it would be well that blank stones should be 
left in places, to be inscribed with a summary of his life and 
of its experience, raising thus the habitation into a kind of 
monument, and developing, into more systematic instructive- 
ness, that good custom which was of old universal, and which 
still remains among some of the Swiss and Germans, of ac- 
knowledging the grace of God's permission to bu^ld and pos- 
sess a quiet resting place. 



THE TRUE GENTLEMAN. 



GENTLEMAN'S first characteristic is that 
fineness of structure in the body ? which renders 
it capable of the most delicate sensation ; and of 
structure in the mind which renders it capable of 
the most delicate sympathies — one may say, simply, "fineness 
of nature." This is, of course, compatible with heroic bodily 
strength and mental firmness ; in fact, heroic strength is not 
conceivable without such delicacy. Elephantine strength 
may drive its way through a forest and feel no touch of the 
boughs ; but the white skin of Homer's Atrides would have 
felt a bent rose-leaf, yet subdue its feeling in glow of battle, 
and behave itself like iron. I do not mean to call an elephant 
a vulgar animal ; but if you think about him carefully, you 
will find that his non-vulgarity consists in such gentleness as 
is possible to elephantine nature ; not in his insensitive hide, 
nor in his clumsy foot ; but in the way he will lift his foot if 
a child lies in his way ; and in his sensitive trunk, and still 
more sensitive mind, and capability of pique on points of 
honour. 

And, though rightness of moral conduct is ultimately the 
great purifier of race, the sign of nobleness is not in this 
rightness of moral conduct, but in sensitiveness. When the 




292 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



make of the creature is fine, its temptations are strong, as 
well as its perceptions ; it is liable to all kinds of impressions 
from without in their most violent form ; liable, therefore, to 
be abused and hurt by all kinds of rough things which would 
do a coarser creature little harm, and thus to fall into fright- 
ful wrong if its fate will have it so. Thus David, coming ot 
gentlest as well as royalist race, of Ruth as well as of Judah, 
is sensitiveness through all flesh and spirit ; not that his 
compassion will restrain him from murder when his terror 
urges him to it ; nay, he is driven to the murder all the more 
by his sensitiveness to the shame which otherwise threatens 
him. But when his own story is told him under a disguise, 
though only a lamb is now concerned, his passion about it 
leaves him no time for thought. "The man shall die" — 
note the reason — "because he had no pity." He is so eager 
and indignant that it never occurs to him as strange that 
Nathan hides the name. This is true gentleman. A vulgar 
man would assuredly have been cautious, and asked "who 
it was?" 

Hence it will follow that one of the probable signs of high- 
breeding in men generally will be their kindness and merci- 
fulness ; these always indicating more or less fineness of make 
in the mind ; and miserliness and cruelty the contrary ; hence 
that of Isaiah: "The vile person shall no more be called 
liberal, nor the churl said to be bountiful." But a thousand 
things may prevent this kindness from displaying or con- 
tinuing itself ; the mind of the man may be warped so as to 
bear mainly on his own interests, and then all his sensibilities 
will take the form of pride, or fastidiousness, or revengeful- 
ness ; and other wicked, but not ungentlemanly, tempers ; 



THE TRUE GENTLEMAN. 



293 



or, farther, they may run into utter sensuality and covetous- 
ness, if he is bent on pleasure, accompanied with quite infinite 
cruelty when the pride is wounded or the passions thwarted ; 
— until your gentleman becomes Ezzelin, and your lady, the 
deadly Lucrece ; yet still gentleman and lady, quite incapable 
of making anything else of themselves, being so born. 

A truer sign of breeding than mere kindness is, therefore, 
sympathy ; — a vulgar man may often be kind in a hard way, 
on principle, and because he thinks he ought to be ; whereas, 
a highly-bred man, even when cruel, will be cruel in a softer 
way, understanding and feeling what he inflicts, and pitying 
his victim. Only we must carefully remember that the quan- 
tity of sympathy a gentleman feels can never be judged of by 
its outward expression, for another of his chief characteristics 
is apparent reserve. I say "apparent" reserve ; for the sym- 
pathy is real, but the reserve not : a perfect gentleman is 
never reserved, but sweetly and entirely open, so far as it is 
good for others, or possible, that he should be. In a great 
many respects it is impossible that he should be open except 
to men of his own kind To them, he can open himself, by a 
word, or syllable, or a glance ; but to men not of his kind he 
cannot open himself, though he tried it through an eternity of 
clear grammatical speech. By the very acuteness of his 
sympathy he knows how much of himself he can give to any- 
body ; and he gives that much frankly : — would always be 
glad to give more if he could, but is obliged nevertheless, in 
his general intercourse with the world, to be a somewhat 
silent person : silence is to most people, he finds, less reserve 
than speech. 



THE THANKFUL HEART. 



ELL, Scholar, and we having still a mile to Tot- 
tenham High-cross, I will, as we walk towards 
it in the cool shade of this sweet honeysuckle 
hedge, mention to you some of the thoughts 
and joys that have possessed my soul since we two met 
together. And these thoughts shall be told you, that you 
also may join with me in thankfulness to the Giver of 
every good and perfect gift, for our happiness. And, that 
our present happiness may appear to be the greater, and we 
the more thankful for it, I will beg you to consider with me 
how many do, even at this very time, lie under the torment 
of the stone, the gout, and toothache ; and this we are free 
from. And every misery that I miss is a new mercy ; and 
therefore let us be thankful. There have been, since we met, 
others that have met disasters of broken limbs ; some have 
been blasted, others thunder-strucken ; and we have been 
freed from these, and all those many other miseries that 
threaten human nature : let us, therefore, rejoice and be 
thankful. Nay, which is a far greater mercy, we are free 
from the unsupportable burthen of an accusing, tormenting 
conscience, — a misery that none can bear, and therefore let 
us praise Him for his preventing grace, and say, — Every 




THE THANKFUL HEART 



295 



misery that I miss is a new mercy. Nay, let me tell you, 
there be many that have forty times our estates, that would 
give the greatest part of it to be healthful and cheerful like 
us ; who with the expense of a little money, have eat and 
drank, and laughed, and angled, and sung, and slept securely, 
and rose next day, and cast away care, and sung, and laughed, 
and angled again ; which are blessings rich men cannot pur- 
chase with all their money. Let me tell you, scholar, I have 
a rich neighbour that is always so busy that he has no leisure 
to laugh ; the whole business of his life is to get money, and 
more money, that he may still get more and more money : 
he is still drudging on, and says, that Solomon says, " The 
diligent hand maketh rich :" and it is true, indeed ; but he 
considers not that it is not in the power of riches to make a 
man happy ; for it was wisely said by a man of great observa- 
tion, " That there be as many miseries beyond riches, as on 
this side them"; and yet, God deliver us from pinching po- 
verty, and grant, that having a competency, we may be con- 
tent and thankful. Let not us repine, or so much as think 
the gifts of God unequally dealt, if we see another abound 
with riches, when, as God knows, the cares that are the keys 
that keep those riches hang often so heavily at the rich 
man's girdle, that they clog him with weary days and rest- 
less nights, even when others sleep quietly. We see but the 
outside of the rich man's happiness : few consider him to be 
like the silkworm, that, when she seems to play, is at the very 
same time spinning her own bowels, and consuming herself. 
And this many rich men do ; loading themselves with cor- 
roding cares to keep what they have, probably, unconscion- 
ably got. Let us, therefore, be thankful for health and a 
competence, and above all, for a quiet conscience. 



296 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



Let me tell you, Scholar, that Diogenes walked on a day 
with a friend, to see a country fair, where he saw ribbons, 
and looking-glasses, and nut-crackers, and fiddles, and hobby- 
horses, and many other gimcracks ; and having observed 
them, and all the other finnimbruns that make a complete 
country fair, he said to his friend, " Lord, how many things 
are there in this world of which Diogenes hath no need P 
And truly it is so, or might be so, with very many who vex 
and toil themselves to get what they have no need of. Can 
any man charge God that He hath not given him enough to 
make his life happy ? No, doubtless ; for nature is content 
with a little ; and yet you shall hardly meet with a man that 
complains not of some want ; though he, indeed, wants no- 
thing but his will, it may be, nothing but his will of his poor 
neighbour, for not worshipping, or not flattering him ; and 
thus, when we might be happy and quiet, we create trouble 
to ourselves. I have heard of a man that was angry with 
himself because he was no taller, and of a woman that broke 
her looking-glass because it would not show her face to be as 
young and handsome as her next neighbour's was. And I 
knew another, to whom God had given health and plenty, but a 
wife that nature made peevish, and her husband's riches had 
made purse-proud, and must, because she was rich, and for 
no other virtue, sit in the highest pew in the church, which, 
being denied her, she engaged her husband into a contention 
for it ; and, at last, into a lawsuit with a dogged neighbour, 
who was as rich as he, and had a wife as peevish and purse- 
proud as the other ; and this lawsuit begot higher oppositions, 
and actionable words, and more vexations and lawsuits, for 
you must remember that both were rich, and must therefore 



THE THANKFUL HEART. t 297 

have their wills. Well, this wilful, purse-proud lawsuit lasted 
during the life of the first husband ; after which his wife 
vexed and chid, and chid and vexed, till she also chid and 
vexed herself into her grave ; and so the wealth of these poor 
rich people was curst into a punishment ; because they 
wanted meek and thankful hearts, for those only can make 
us happy. I knew a man that had health and riches, and 
several houses, all beautiful and ready furnished, and would 
often trouble himself and family to be removing from one 
house to another ; and being asked by a friend why he re- 
moved so often from one house to another, replied, " It was 
to find content in some one of them." But his friend, know- 
ing his temper, told him, if he would find content in any of 
his houses, he must leave himself behind him : for content 
will never dwell but in a meek and quiet soul. And this may 
appear if we read and consider what our Saviour says in St. 
Matthew's gospel; for there he says, "Blessed be the mer- 
ciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed be the pure in 
heart, for they shall see God. Blessed be the pure in spirit, 
for their's is the kingdom of heaven." And " Blessed be the 
meek, for they shall possess the earth." Not that the meek 
shall not also obtain mercy, and see God, and be comforted, 
and at last come to the kingdom of heaven ; but in the mean 
time he, and he only, possesses the earth as he goes towards 
that kingdom of heaven, by being humble and cheerful, and 
content with what his good God has allotted him : he has 
no turbulent, repining, vexatious thoughts that he deserves 
better ; nor is vexed when he sees others possessed of more 
honour, or more riches than his wise God has allotted for his 
share ; but he possesses what he has with a meek and con- 



298 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



tented quietness, — such a quietness as makes his very dreams 
pleasing, both to God and himself. 

My honest scholar, all this is told to incline you to thank- 
fulness ; and to incline you the more, let me tell you, that 
though the Prophet David was guilty of murder and adultery, 
and many other of the most deadly sins : yet he was said to 
be a man after God's own heart, because he abounded more 
with thankfulness than any other that is mentioned in holy 
scripture, as may appear in his book of Psalms ; where there 
is such a commixture of his confessing of his sins and un- 
worthiness, and such thankfulness for God's pardon and 
mercies, as did make him to be accounted even by God him- 
self, to be a man after his own heart : and let us in that, labour 
to be as like him as we can ; let not the blessings we receive 
daily from God, make us not to value, or not praise Him, be- 
cause they be common; let not us forget to praise Him for 
the innocent mirth and pleasure we have met with since we 
met together : what would a blind man give to see the 
pleasant rivers, and meadows, and flowers, and fountains, 
that we have met with since we met together? I have been 
told, that if a man that was born blind could obtain to have 
his sight for but only one hour, during his whole life, and 
should, at the first opening of his eyes, fix his sight upon the 
sun when it was in his full glory, either at the rising or setting 
of it, he would be so transported and amazed, and so admire 
the glory of it, that he would not willingly turn his eyes from 
that first ravishing object, to behold all the other various- 
beauties this world could present to him. And this, and 
many other like blessings, we enjoy daily ; and for most of 
them, because they be so common, most men forgot to pay 



THE THANKFUL HEART. 



299 



their praises ; but let not us, because it is a sacrifice so 
pleasing to Him that made that sun, and us, and still protects 
us, and gives us flowers, and showers, and stomachs, and 
meat, and content, and leisure to go a-fishing. 

Well, scholar, I have almost tired myself, and, I fear, more 
than almost tired you : but I now see Tottenham High-cross ; 
and our short walk thither shall put a period to my too long 
discourse ; in which my meaning was, and is, to plant that in 
your mind, with which I labour to possess my own soul : 
that is, a meek and thankful heart. And, to that end, I have 
shewed you that riches without them do not make any man 
happy. But let me tell you, that riches with them remove 
many fears, and cares ; and therefore my advice is, that you 
endeavour to be honestly rich, or contentedly poor : but be 
sure that your riches be justly got, or you spoil all. For it is 
well said by Caussin, "he that loses his conscience, has 
nothing left that is worth keeping." Therefore be sure you 
look to that. And, in the next place, look to your health : 
and if you have it, praise God, and value it next to a good 
conscience ; for health is the second blessing that we mortals 
are capable of ; a blessing that money cannot buy ; and 
therefore value it, and be thankful for it. As for money, 
which may be said to be the third blessing, neglect it not : 
but note, that there is no necessity of being rich : for I told 
you, there be as many miseries beyond riches, as on this side 
them : and, if you have a competence, enjoy it with a meek, 
cheerful, thankful, heart. I will tell you, scholar, I have 
heard a grave Divine say, that God has two dwellings, one 
in Heaven, and the other in a meek and thankful heart. 
Which Almighty God grant to me, and to my honest scholar: 
and so you are welcome to Tottenham High- cross. 



3oo 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



And now we will rest ourselves in this sweet shady arbour, 
which nature herself has woven with her own fine fingers ; 'tis 
such a contexture of woodbines, sweetbriar, jessamine, and 
myrtle, and so interwoven, as will secure us both from the 
sun's violent heat, and from the approaching shower ; and, 
being sat down, when you have pledged me in a full glass of 
that liquor (which is, indeed, too good for anybody but us 
anglers), I will requite a part of your courtesies with A Fare- 
well to the Vanities of the World, and some say, written by 
Sir Harry Wotton. But let them be writ by whom they will, 
he that writ them had a brave soul, and must needs be pos- 
sessed with happy thoughts at the time of their composure. 

Farewell ye gilded follies, pleasing troubles ; 
Farewell ye honour'd rags, ye glorious bubbles ; 
Fame's but a hollow echo, — Gold, pure clay; — 
Honour, the darling but of one short day: — 
Beauty, th' eye's idol, but a damask'd skin: — 
State, but a golden prison, to live in 
And torture free-born minds: — Embroider' d trains 
Merely but pageants for proud swelling veins: — 
And blood allay'd to greatness, is alone 
Inherited, not purchas'd, nor our own. 

Fame, Honour, Beauty, State, Train, Blood, and Birth, 

Are but the fading blossoms of the earth. 

I would be Great, — but that the Sun doth still 
Level his rays against the rising hill : 
I would be High, — but see the proudest oak 
Most subject to the rending thunder-stroke : 
I would be Rich, — but see men too unkind, 
Dig in the bowels of the richest mind : 
I would be Wise, — but that I often see 
The fox suspectedj whilst the ass goes free: 



THE THANKFUL HEART. 



I would be Fair, — but see the fair and proud, 

Like the bright Sun, oft setting in a cloud: 

I would be Poor, — but know the humble grass 

Still trampled on by each unworthy ass: 

Rich hated: — Wise suspected : — Scorn'd if poor :— 

Great fear'd: — Fair tempted : — High, still envy'd more: 

I have wish'd all ; but now I wish for neither; 

Great, High, Rich, Wise, nor Fair ; Poor I'll be rather. 

Would the World now adopt me for her heir, 

Would Beauty's Queen entitle me the fair, — 

Fame speak me Fortune's minion, — could I vie 

Angels with India, — with a speaking eye 

Command bare heads, bow'd knees, strike Justice dumb, 

As well as blind and lame, or give a tongue 

To stones by epitaphs: be called great master 

In the loose rhymes of every poetaster : — 

Could I be more than any man that lives, 
Great, fair, rich, wise, all in superlatives : 
Yet I more freely would these gifts resign, 
Than ever Fortune would have made them mine; 
And hold one minute of this holy leisure, 
Beyond the riches of this empty pleasure. 

Welcome, pure thoughts, Welcome ye silent groves, 
These guests, these courts my soul most dearly loves: 
Now the wing'd people of the sky shall sing 
My cheerful anthems to the gladsome Spring : 
A Pray'r-book now, shall be my looking-glass, 
In which I will adore sweet Virtue's face. 
Here dwell no hateful looks, no palace-cares, 
No broken vows dwell here, nor pale-fac'd fears : 
Then here I'll sit, and sigh my hot love's folly, 
And learn t'affect an holy melancholy: 
And if Contentment be a stranger, — then 
I'll ne'er look for it, but in Heaven again. 



302 THE SILENT HOUR. 

VENATOR.* Well, master, these verses be worthy to keep a 
room in every man's memory. I thank you for them ; and I 
thank you for your many instructions, which, God willing, I 
will not forget : and as St. Austin in his Confessions, Book 4, 
chap. 3, commemorates the kindness of his friend Verecundus, 
for lending him and his companion a country-house, because 
there they rested and enjoyed themselves free from the 
troubles of the world ; so, having had the like advantage, 
both by your conversation and the art you have taught me, I 
ought ever to do the like : for, indeed, your company and dis- 
course have been so useful and pleasant, that I may truly say, 
I have only lived since I enjoyed them and turned angler, and 
not before. Nevertheless, here I must part with you, here in 
this now sad place, where I was so happy as first to meet 
you : but I shall long for the ninth of May, for then I hope 
again to enjoy your beloved company at the appointed time 
and place. And now I wish for some somniferous potion, 
that might force me to sleep away the intermitted time, which 
will pass away with me as tediously as it does with men in 
sorrow ; nevertheless, I will make it as short as I can by my 
hopes and wishes. And, my good master, I will not forget 
the doctrine which you told me Socrates taught his scholars, 
that they should not think to be honoured so much for being 
philosophers, as to honour philosophy by their virtuous lives. 
You advised me to the like concerning angling, and I will 

# This most beautiful discourse, one of the purest and finest ser- 
mons ever written, is given by Izaak Walton in the form of a dia- 
logue. Piscator (Walton) delivers the discourse, and his companion, 
Venator, here replies to him in the grave and courtly fashion of the 
times. 



THE THANKFUL HEART. 



303 



endeavour to do so, and to live like those many worthy men, 
of which you made mention in the former part of your dis- 
course. This is my firm resolution ; and as a pious man 
advised his friend, that to beget mortification he should fre- 
quent churches, and view monuments and charnel-houses, 
and then and there consider how many dead bones time had 
piled up at the gates of death : so when I would beget con- 
tent, and increase confidence in the power, and wisdom, and 
providence of Almighty God, I will walk the meadows by 
some gliding stream, and there contemplate the lilies that 
take no care, and those very many other various little living 
creatures, that are not only created, but fed, man knows not 
how, by the goodness of the God of Nature, and therefore 
trust in Him. This is my purpose ; and so, " Let everything 
that hath breath praise the Lord." 

Piscator. And let the blessing of St. Peter's Master be 
with mine. And upon all that are lovers of virtue, and dare 
trust in His providence. 



" Study to be Quiet, 77 i Thes. iv, 11. 




T. RICHARDS, GREAT QUEEN STREET. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS , 



0 021 064 141 5 



